The Oldest Grimm
by Kaestal
Summary: The older a Grimm gets the smarter it becomes, for one Grimm with age came understanding, knowledge, and wisdom. A Beowolf stopped killing and ignored what its younger kin did so it could rest. However, a certain Professor looking for a beast to challenge his students with threw this desire out the window and might shake things up in the world of Remnant. (On Hiatus)
1. Introduction: Captive Laziness

_(Edited 10/16/2016)_

 _Some small stuff, a more accurate description of what I envision Beowolf looks like, more of an actual wolf than a werewolf._

 _(Edited 1/2/2017)_

 _I merged the first and second chapters, their short length was a remnant from when I first started this story and had an average of about 1500 words per chapter._

 _ **=================================|EKM|===================================**_

Professor Port had been searching the forest for an adequate Grimm that the students could test their mettle against, but to his continued disappointment the ones he found weren't really that tough. Port saw yet another Beowolf run from him and let out a sigh.

"I suppose stories of my feats are even being told among the Grimm themselves!" Port searched for any Grimm he could use before coming across an oddity.

The Grimm he saw sleeping before him looked like a Beowolf variant, more wolf that the average ones but it was huge, just a bit smaller than an Ursa Minor and its body seemed to have none of the spikes a normal Grimm had, instead it was covered in fur that seemed a thicker than the normal stuff. The mask on its face was rather plain, straight red lines extended from the eyes and ended on its snout.

"What have we here? A new and different beast to defeat!" Port saw the Beowolf open a red eye and look in his direction, but instead of getting up to attack him it simply shifted its head away from the Hunter.

"Hmm." Port saw the beast let out a huff before it once again went still and he moved to it slowly, weapon ready for any movement on the beast's part. "Easy there, easy." The Beowolf didn't react to the sound a reinforced cage rattling with more than its ears twitching.

Port was truly surprised at just how easy it was to get this thing inside the cage, it seemed to entirely not care about his actions and just went along with it.

"You're an odd one..." The Beowolf let out a yawn, showing Port its massive fangs. Port started to go back to Beacon with the beast in tow. It just went back to sleep once loaded on the vehicle.

 _ **=================================|EKM|===================================**_

"-who among you believes themselves to be the embodiment of these traits?" _That human can talk for a long time_ was the only thought what went through the Beowolf's head when waking up.

"I do sir!" Beowolf jerked awake at the younger human's voice, it had fallen asleep during the larger one's speech and really wished to return to such a state.

"Then step forward and face your opponent." Beowolf heard the locks on the cage being broken by a weapon and let out an audible groan before trying to sleep again.

30 seconds or so passed and he still hadn't left the cage.

"Umm... is there anything in there?" Beowolf heard one of the humans ask.

The man who captured him hit the back of the cage with his axe which launched the Beowolf out of his nice, comfortable bed and into the open.

Beowolf let out a yawn once more before resting his eyes on a girl with white hair and clothing for a moment, but soon turned its attention towards the crowd.

Beowolf rested his eyes on a blond male before going towards a red headed female, and then a slightly younger female with black hair.

"Uhhh, why is that thing looking at us? Shouldn't it be focusing on Weiss?" The young black-haired one said, and the white-haired one, Weiss apparently, seemed to agree if the angry look on her face said anything.

"Pay attention you mongrel!" Weiss sent a few dust bullets towards Beowolf who didn't react even as they hit him, letting his fur deal with the different elements.

Thousands of years had given this Beowolf's fur amazing defensive qualities, and while bullets aren't enough to really hurt him he did feel like something was poking his skin. It was more of an annoyance than anything else.

Weiss used some of her Glyphs and this got Beowolf to move, but when Weiss went fully on offense the Beowolf just kept dodging her attacks before moving across the arena.

"C'mon Weiss! You can do this!" Beowolf lazily looked at the girl who yelled the encouragement after he saw Weiss' eye twitch. Weiss started her assault again but the result was the same, Beowolf dancing around her sword and Glyphs while allowing her dust bullets to impact on his fur.

Beowolf saw the human was getting tired, one loses more energy on a miss than a hit, and Weiss was missing every single sword strike that she attempted.

Weiss kept her guard up while she took in a few deep breaths, she hadn't even really hurt the Grimm. Beowolf suddenly moved, appearing right next to the one that had shouted encouragement.

"Ruby!" A female with long blonde hair yelled, Ruby's eyes had widened upon seeing the creature of nightmare appear right on her desk, Ruby looked around without moving and found she sadly didn't have her weapon nearby.

Many other students had backed off in fear, silent while Ruby was preparing to run as fast as she could if needed. Weiss looked at the creature in shock, he had moved so fast, faster than she had seen Ruby move in the forest.

Beowolf lightly sniffed the air around himself, then looked back and forth between the Yellow-haired one and Ruby, tilting his head sideways, _"Kin."_ Beowolf looked from Yang to Ruby before lightly biting into Ruby's shirt, nudging her towards Yang.

Ruby got up slowly, this thing might still attack at any time after all and kept an eye on it before going over to Yang. Weiss stalked towards the Beowolf, but his tail swiped her sword from her grasp once she was in range and pulled it close to his side.

Beowolf then stopped moving, getting comfortable around on the desk before laying down, to the surrounding student's confusion he actually started snoring.

"Professor? What's happening?" Port frowned at that question, in all his years as a Huntsman he has never seen a beast such as this; it hadn't attempted to even fight during that whole time and just dodged Weiss' attacks instead of attempting to kill her.

It had displayed similarly strange behavior in the Emerald Forest, but it could've just been too tired to really fight back at the time.

"I do not know my boy, this is a first even for one as experienced as I am." Port moved over to the Beowolf, strengthening his aura's defensive properties before placing a hand on the beast's fur, but the Beowolf just unconsciously leaned into his hand like a dog wanting pets.

"SOOO CUTE!" A female yelled, jolting the Beowolf out of his nap. Nora hugged the large creature who just rested his head on the new shoulder-pillow.

"Nora?" A male in green said, he was confident that Nora could handle herself with this beast, she _had_ made an Ursa her personal chariot after all, and this Grimm couldn't be much tougher than that one. But the unknown capabilities of this creature had him remain cautious.

"He is just like a lazy, cuddly puppy Ren!" Ren sighed and Beowolf groaned at this, which actually shocked Port. "Can it understand us?" Beowolf turned to the man before dipping its head as far up and down as it could with Nora's shoulder in the way.

"It... just... a _GRIMM_ can understand us?!" Weiss said in shock, and Beowolf just fell asleep on the new shoulder for a while before the drama could affect it. His shoulder-pillow moved for a bit and he heard a faint "Can I keep him? Please Ren?" before he finally slept once more.

 _ **=================================|EKM|===================================**_

Beowolf awoke from his nap in a new room, apparently having been moved there by someone, and looked around.

It had four rectangular things with cloth on the top that looked heavenly to sleep on, and the room had four inhabitants, two were pushing a line of some sorts on a smaller rectangle, which was forming dark lines in a pattern of some sort.

The blond boy and the redhead girl were doing this easily, but the sugar girl, and... Ren.. if he remembers correctly were having a bit of a more difficult time what with her energy not being used to write, but to talk.

Beowolf looked down at himself and saw a leather collar was around his neck, _"Well, that won't do."_ Beowolf extended his tail a short amount and slipped it in underneath the offending leather, snapping it off himself.

The Grimm would in the future remember that these humans are not deaf and that the sound of something such as leather being ripped apart is rather loud. The noise made three of the humans jump while the fourth one just grinned, her newest friend was up!

"Mr. fluffykin snufflebun snoresalot peanut buttercupcake lazybutt!" The newly awake Grimm had about half of a second to process that new information before he was once again hugged by the Sugar Girl. Beowolf looked at Ren before tilting his head to the side as if to say "Explain Please?"

"Nora, we didn't agree on a name for him yet." Beowolf balked at that, they were trying to _name_ him? Beowolf is Beowolf, he doesn't nee- "He needs a name though Ren! It would be weird calling him Beowolf all the time!"

The redheaded female tried, and failed, to suppress a grin at Nora's declaration. Beowolf dropped his head in defeat while the blonde shook his in disbelief. "I never thought we would debate naming a Grimm."

Beowolf let out a yawn before getting up, Nora somehow ended up sitting on his back like he was a race horse, "Yay! Giddyup!" Beowolf calmly walked around the room with the sugar girl, discovering who owned what based on the most prominent scent an item held.

"Sooo.. you can understand us right?" Nora got off of Beowolf, who looked at the blond male and nodded his head, "Can you talk like us?" The Grimm opened his mouth in an attempt to imitate humans but no sound came out, and upon closing his mouth Beowolf shook his head.

"What about writing?" Beowolf once more tilted his head and the blond male got a thin rectangle along with the line thing. The Grimm looked at it for a moment before moving towards the blonde and nipping his hand, drawing a tiny amount of blood before licking it up.

"Ouch! What the hec-" Jaune, as Beowolf now knew, along with the rest of Team JNPR looked on as Beowolf grabbed the pencil with his tail and bit his tongue in concentration, he started writing.

Beowolf put the pencil through the paper once he had finished and lifted it up to JNPR, to their surprise he would've had a perfect imitation of Jaune's handwriting if he had a hand instead of a tail or paws.

The words weren't necessarily the best in terms of shape, but considering what Beowolf had to work with it was incredible.

 **Noww I ccann  
**

Beowolf sat there with his tail swooshing back and forth lightly as if awaiting a critique for his art. Jaune looked at his index finger to check it for bleeding, it had somehow clotted already.

Jaune looked at Beowolf "... can you warn me next time I am about to be bitten?" Beowolf tilted his head.

"I think it is great! Using your tail was so cuuuute!" While being hugged yet again by the sugar girl Beowolf wondered if Nora's affections were for everything or just that which she considers "cute"

"For just learning to write it is impressive," Pyrrha said and Beowolf nodded.

Team JNPR heard a knock on the door, "Hey guys breakfast starts in a few minutes, they are serving pancakes." Beowolf felt a bit of static for a moment before he was suddenly forced into giving a piggyback ride for Nora again.

"To the Pancakes my steed!" Beowolf seemed to sigh as forelegs dropped down slightly, but just decided to go along with it.

As they left the room and he heard a scream in the hallway Beowolf had to wonder if a Grimm inside a school for hunters was a weird thing.

* * *

 **A/N What the heck am I doing? I am starting to swamp myself with stories.**

 **I guess the whole older Grimm gain knowledge and power thing had me thinking, can they eventually get old enough that they are capable of understanding human speech and are basically human in intellect?**

 **Beowolf, and I'll still refer to it as Beowolf as it is a variant of the normal kind, the oldest Grimm currently in Remnant, he is, therefore, the most knowledgeable.**

 **He is also very... very lazy as we have seen and he doesn't care for fighting anymore, but as we saw during the Weiss' attempts, he is very good at dodging and very fast as well.**

* * *

 **So I used a combination of a few of the funny names I saw, but I have to give it to Gonstika, seems like a good name.**

 **In case anyone is wondering, Jaune's aura infused blood is what gave Beowolf the ability to write, and it also gave him knowledge about some of the present society and other things, such as everyone's name.**

 **Also, this is now officially my most popular story.**

 **This Grimm is basically a dog the size of a horse. I had difficulty deciding on his size but eventually chose that**


	2. Introduction: Pancakes and Grimm Lessons

_Edited 10/22/2016_

 _Edited 1/2/2016_ _(Merged chapter 3 and 4)_

* * *

As it turns out the screams were more of surprised yelps by Ruby and her team. Beowolf has big ears that are rather sensitive to sound.

"YOU!" Weiss exclaimed, pointing at Beowolf while a glare graced her features. The Grimm took notice of the sword on her belt, _"She must've taken it back when I was asleep."_ Beowolf made an amused hum and quickly took it again with his tail, pressing it tightly against his side once more.

"Give that back!" Weiss demanded, and when Beowolf didn't return it she started trying to take it from him but he just held it out of reach. Nora's stomach growled upon smelling pancakes, "No time! We are on a mission!"

Beowolf gently returned the blade to Weiss before she got too angry at him. He started slowly walking towards where the sweet scent was coming from, he braced himself before disappearing into thin air, though they could see the large Grimm was now further down the hall, he was sprinting fast enough to

The two teams stared at the now vacant space, "Think we should follow them?" Yang questioned, the team scrambled after their escaping comrades. Ruby decided to use her semblance to catch up to the two escaping people.

Apparently, word had gotten around that a passive Grimm was on the campus, as instead of seeing signs of a battle they simply saw a few hunters in training looking apprehensively in the direction the cafeteria was located.

They finally caught up to Beowolf, Nora, and Ruby just in front of the door to the cafeteria. Nora got off Beowolf and landed on her feet while he was sat down exactly like a dog would. Beowolf turned his head to look at the two teams Nora almost immediately appeared next to Ren.

"This guy can be really quick when he wants to be." Ren let out a sigh, the creature's speed spoke for itself. "What would have happened if no one knew about him?" Nora stopped to think about that for a moment, "I would've just broken their legs if they tried anything!" Beowolf looked at the excitable, and surprisingly violent girl in confusion, _"Does she believe they could hurt me?"_ before putting his paw to the door and opening it.

"Pancakes!" Nora and Ruby yelled, rushing towards the line while the others walked in like normal people.

Beowolf observed the room as the two teams went to get some food and looked around, he saw many faces of apprehension, but considering what his younger kin have put all entities except their own through Beowolf didn't take offense and simply sat next to a wall.

A large blond man in armor was glaring at him, and the buzzing hatred around him making his thoughts on the Grimm clear.

The girl with the long blond hair walked up to Beowolf, "Heya Drei, wanna sit with us?" Beowolf tilted his head at the new word, letting out a confused sound.

Yang understood that noise, Zwei would make it when he didn't understand something. "I decided to call ya that because Nora's name is way too long. So long that I started **Drei** ding it when she started saying your name." Yang had a grin on her face when she said the pun and Beowolf just stared at her.

"Boooo!" Someone yelled, but Yang just acted like they didn't say anything and waited a moment for Beowolf to respond. "So how about it? Drei?" Beowolf sighed before nodding his head and getting up, walking towards the table with Yang.

"Heya guys, big bad wolf here agreed to the name Drei! Told ya I could find one." Yang grinned, and Drei noted that Weiss, Nora, Ruby, and even Jaune pulled out some Lein before giving it to the Blonde.

Biting Jaune had _really_ been a good thing, the blond male had a fair amount of information about this new society the humans and faunus had made for themselves.

Drei sniffed the air, he could smell a _ridiculous_ amount of sugar infused maple syrup and turned his attention to Nora's pancakes.

Nora had her eyes closed in delight as she was happily dining away, nothing was as good as a big ol plate of pancakes with so much syrup it is surrounded by a fine coating, but upon going for another bite she felt her fork stab air. Nora opened her eyes and saw that Drei had syrup covering the fur around his mouth and down his neck like a handkerchief. Nora felt like she had just died a little on the inside, "But... but why?"

Drei just sat there, at least he wasn't shaking the stuff off himself like a dog but even so he looked like a Maple Syrup bandit.

Not that he knew that though, his fur was too thick for him to feel the syrup.

"Whaddya know, they are real." Drei saw the armor clad man pulling the ears of a rabbit faunus a few tables down from them.

 _"Does that male not know that my younger kin do not care about whether or not one is a human or faunus? What does this manner of aggression accomplish?"_ Drei must've been staring for a time because Cardin looked over at him while he continued bullying Velvet.

"What're you looking at?" Cardin felt that a single Beowolf wasn't that much of a threat, and if one of them was tamed to the degree that it didn't attack anyone it couldn't be that tough.

Drei suddenly appeared next to Velvet, while Drei was sitting down he was still tall enough to stare Cardin in the eye and actually _growling_ at the human.

"What is this things problem?" Drei tilted his head once more before turning around and moving his head lower, lightly nipping Velvet on the arm. The nip was just enough to draw a small bit of blood and he quickly did the same to Cardin. Velvet yelped at the light bite while Cardin swore.

"What the hell ya damn dog?!" The Beowolf didn't react to Cardin's swear and looked at the two identical drops of blood on the ground, pointing to them with his tail.

Drei then licked Velvet's bite which clotted the injury before returning to the table that RWBY and JNPR were sitting at.

Team CDNL walked away from Velvet after Drei left, having lost interest in bully her when she seemed to have a rather large and fast guard Beowolf.

"You really need to stop nipping people," Jaune said to Drei, who simply took one of the blond male's pancakes in response.

 _ **=================================|EKM|===================================**_

It was always an enjoyable event, there were parades, dances, and even a combat tournament. People from all over the world came to celebrate. Of course, considering the string of Dust robberies, and his own suspicions about who was behind them, such an event might be unwise to set up, the risk of security breaches would skyrocket during the days it was going on.

He was brought out of his thoughts when he saw a black blur in the hallways, Ozpin saw from a nearby security console that their Grimm visitor, who he had been informed by Port was taken by Nora and placed in JNPR's team room, was currently racing towards the cafeteria, apparently with the girl in tow who seemed quite pleased with her current state if the wide smile was anything to go by.

"It seems that a great many fascinating individuals have arrived here recently..." Ozpin said with a small smile as he got out of his seat, he supposed it was time to meet their new arrival personally, he trusted Port to know what he was talking about when it came to Grimm behaviors, while the man was a bland teacher if the student gossip was to be believed, his expertise in that field the world was second to none.

If he said the Grimm was safe to be around students, chances are it is safe.

Though learning more about it couldn't hurt. Ozpin made his way to the cafeteria and found the creature just sitting next to Jaune Arc.

"Ahem." Drei turned his head towards the one who had made the sound, a bespectacled, gray-haired man wearing a black and green suit was looking at the Beowolf with a raised eyebrow.

"Would you follow me to my office please?" Drei looked at the Headmaster for a few seconds before getting up from his seated position.

As the two walked out of the cafeteria the Beowolf, and presumably the man, heard someone declaring the words "Food Fight", _"I did not know that Humans and Faunus also had to fight their food, my younger kin would find this interesting if they could_ think _."_

"Allow me to introduce myself, I am Ozpin, the headmaster of this academy." Ozpin stated while they were walking towards an elevator. _"I guess_ _his office is up a few levels."_ Drei thought to himself.

Ozpin opened the door before stepping in with Drei, sadly for Ozpin the Grimm was large and the elevator was small, squishing him into the wall.

Drei heard a slightly panicked mumble from the human beside him, and in an attempt to understand what Ozpin was saying the Grimm shifted some of his mass, condensing it into himself and taking on a smaller but more focused form. Drei was now equal to an Irish Wolfhound in size instead of a fully mature horse.

Ozpin took in a fresh breath of air, "I suppose you could've done that from the beginning?" Ozpin said to the Grimm, the masked creature somehow pulling off a look of innocence.

The doors to Ozpin's Office opened and the Grimm saw a woman standing to the side of the desk when the two walked out, Ozpin moved to sit in a chair while Drei sat on the floor across from the humans.

Ozpin took a sip from his mug before clearing his throat, "I must say that in all my years I have never encountered anything quite like you. Despite the fact that you are a Grimm you seem to hold no ill will for Humans or Faunus, and display a far wider range of emotion than the simple fury of your kin. The fact that you slept for almost 5 hours without ever waking suggests an advanced age. Grimm who are hundreds of years old have been recorded to only sleep for 30 minutes a day, and you didn't react much more than a twitch when Ms. Valkyrie lifted you." Drei nodded to that assessment, considering Ozpin had only known about Drei for about 6 hours he had made fantastic deductions.

"May I ask how old you are? If you don't mind of course." Drei used a claw this time and managed much better handwriting. When carving his answer into Ozpin's desk the headmaster sighed, the desk is made of mahogany wood and it isn't easy to replace.

Or cheap.

 **15,032**

"Is that.. months?" Glynda asked hopefully, and Drei shook his head before carving something else into the wood.

 **Years**

"Fifteen Thousand years old... incredible," Ozpin said softly, the oldest Grimm they have on record are, at most, 300 years old. Not many get older than that as they become incredibly dangerous around that time and are specifically hunted down.

It usually takes a team of fully trained hunters to defeat such a foe and the creature sitting before them is over fifty times that age... _"Drei is one of the strongest beings alive."_ Ozpin realized as he looked at the ancient Grimm. It was a scary thing to think about what would've happened if another, less friendly Grimm of such an age were in this creature's place.

The school would be a bloodbath if that were the case...

Glynda had gone a tad paler than normal, this Grimm was possibly the _oldest_ and most experienced on the planet. Drei shifted his gaze to the woman when he felt her worry, tilting his head to the side in confusion before carving something else into the desk.

 **I feel your fear, why are you fearful?**

"Do you not realize that at the age you have reached you are quite possibly the strongest being on the planet?" Glynda said, and Drei moved his claw to the desk once more but was intercepted by Ozpin's hand.

"I would ask you refrain from damaging my desk any further and find something else to write on." Drei looked around and couldn't find anything so he instead dug a claw into the floor.

 **I am also very lazy and prefer not to fight at all. Humans and Faunus are simply defending themselves against my younger kin. They are in the right.**

Glynda couldn't really refute the Grimm's point, but was still surprised at his acceptance of _his_ species being killed by the people that are trained in this school.

"Is it possible for others to become sentient like you are?" Ozpin questioned, surely Drei couldn't be unique among all of Grimm-kind.

Drei moved to one of the walls in Ozpin's Office, carving his response into the wall.

Thankfully, the walls could be easily replaced... in a few weeks.

 **Given a great enough amount of time.**

Ozpin sat back in his chair, "More than 300 years I would imagine?" Drei nodded his head. "You are most likely unique then, there are no other Grimm we know of that are much older than 300 anymore as most have been hunted down." Drei simply shrugged, he had thought as much. Glynda pulled out her scroll, the food fight occurring in the cafeteria had gotten a bit out of control.

"Excuse me Ozpin, Drei." Ozpin's eyes held a twinkle of amusement when Glynda took out her riding crop, "Kids will be kids Ms. Goodwitch and their innocence won't last forever. Go a bit easy on them." Glynda didn't give Ozpin a response as she walked out of the room.

Ozpin turned to the Grimm once more while he debated asking another question "Do you know anything about hybrids?"

Drei looked down for a moment before carving the answer into the wall.

 _ **=================================|EKM|===================================**_

When the Beowolf returned back to the cafeteria it looked like an explosion of color had occurred, so many different types of nutrients, or in some cases, snacks, were coating the place.

Glynda had the students cleaning the place, they had caused the mess so they would clean it up.

"Horsey?" Nora looked at Drei in confusion, he was much smaller than he had been before. Drei tilted his head at the girl before looking up a bit in comprehension.

He had never shifted sizes in front of them so their confusion is somewhat justified. Drei tensed his body before rapidly returning to the size the two teams knew him to be.

"Huh.. don't see that every day," Jaune noted before getting back to work, Glynda's eye had twitched.

Nora saw this as well and proceeded to quickly mop up a puddle containing a few different drinks. Drei simply laid down and observed the students.

 _"The blond male looks familiar."_ Jaune's appearance and mannerisms reminded him of someone, he just couldn't remember who.

 _"I have lived a very long time... perhaps I encountered one of his ancestors along the way."_

There was a surprisingly small amount of guilt in the room considering what had happened, _"They must view whatever happened as 'worth it'.."_

He felt another emotion alongside the very light guilt however, he felt and had been feeling a nearly constant amount of doubt mixed with guilt, but pinpointing it among the crowd of bipeds had been difficult.

All Grimm have the ability to sense negative emotions, most Grimm cannot differentiate between any of the complex emotions and simply use this to locate prey, but in the paws of one as experienced as Drei, it can become _so_ much more than that.

When he had stopped Cardin from bullying Velvet he felt fear from the Faunus and a form of cultivated disgust from the human, likely due to outside influence.

Jaune constantly had feelings of doubt and guilt, maybe not on the surface but they are always there. _"What is he doubting?"_

* * *

 **A/N I can't really imagine that the food fight that happened at the beginning of season 2 is the first one ever and upon seeing the school's headmaster leaving it would probably provoke some of the more... brave... students to do such a thing.**

 **Drei is in some ways empathic, and while he can't sense "positive" emotions he can sense negative ones. Jaune's feelings of doubt regarding his position and guilt from not being on par with his peers I feel would be always present but slightly pushed down, but to Drei, it is pretty much all he can feel from the human.**

 **Most people got it, Drei can't actually see a difference between Faunus or Human blood so why would his younger, dumber kin give a damn about it? Essentially, he's saying that they are supposed to be fighting the horrible monsters that slaughter everyone except themselves instead of the person who just happens to have cat ears.**

 **Anime Conventions at their finest.**


	3. Introduction: Cook, Clean, Dream

_A/N so fair warning, I am writing this while tired and it might not be a good chapter. If it doesn't go over well I'll change it later._

 _Edited 10/22/2016_

* * *

 **Team RWBY, Daytime**

Blake couldn't stand it anymore, she has had enough. Drei was a _surprisingly_ friendly Grimm and wasn't the _worst_ company to be with and his near constant hiding of things Weiss needed in about 2 minutes was amusing to Blake personally, but if there was one area he was appalling it was hygiene! Her poor nose was wanting to rip itself from her body in protest!

"Why don't ya give him a bath then?" Yang had said when Blake had complained about his bad smell. Unknown to her or Yang was the fact that Drei was accidentally eavesdropping on the conversation from across the hallway.

It's somewhat difficult to tune out all the sounds around him.

 _"Bath?"_ Drei thought as he rested.

"I doubt he would go for such a thing, even if he is a Grimm he has some traits of a dog. The annoying pest would most likely throw a fit if he had to sit in water for any amount of time."

Weiss evidently didn't like Drei that much, but Drei wasn't doing much to make their relationship better.

It seemed suspicious that the day after he appears whatever she is looking for goes mysteriously missing until she almost _loses_ it. While she couldn't prove it Weiss just _knew_ it was the Grimm's machinations.

"We don't know that Weiss, maybe he really likes water." Ruby, ever the optimist, said to her partner. With a sigh Drei got up from his bed before opening JNPR's door, moving across the hallway and tapped three times on RWBY's door with a claw.

Ruby opened the door and saw Drei standing there, the young huntress actually had to look up at the Grimm due to him still being a bit larger than her. Looking up at the beast was a bit frightening, this creature, no matter it's intelligence, still looked like a Grimm. Drei sensed her fear and lowered himself a bit, being slightly below Ruby's nose.

Drei sensed her fear and lowered himself a bit, being slightly below Ruby's nose.

"Umm.. hi there Drei... did you hear all of that?" Drei looked to Ruby before getting up and lightly nudging her for a moment, Ruby moved over to let him in. "So do you want a bath then?" Yang outright asked and the Grimm simply nodded.

"Seriously? All we had to do was ask?" Weiss questioned while Blake felt like the heavens had finally answered her prayers, all she needed to do was endure for a bit longer.

"I'll get the tub ready!" Yang sang to her teammates before going into the bathroom and turning on the faucets.

Needless to say that for an ancient being who had never once taken a bath there was some work to be done, his fur had many parts of it that had clumped together and Yang's doggy brush, which she had accidentally packed, had a difficult time getting those out. Drei also had a great deal of dirt to get out of his fur, enough that he pulled the drain when Yang decided to turn on the shower instead.

Drei grimaced a bit as he sat unmoving in the tub while his fur was worked on, there were various weirdly scented liquids, not bad smelling, just weird, being rubbed into his fur while water that was apparently supposed to be hot was poured on him.

"He is really calm, I take back what I said before." Weiss stated after seeing the Grimm stay still for Yang, even while the brawler used all her might to get one of the clumps of hair undone.

It took almost a full hour (thankfully a Grimm is a sturdy creature and his skin was fine) before the clumps of hair were dealt with and the water coming off of Drei was clear, not filled with who knows what kinds of grime. At the end.. well... let's just say that no one in Team RWBY had seen a dog with an Afro before.

"Someone get a camera!"

After that day there were two vows made, one, never let Yang near the soap that puffed up Drei's hair, and two, never let their Grimm friend get that dirty ever again.

Drei walked up to Blake with his Afro fur with a questioning look on his face while the normally calm girl had to try really hard not to giggle at his misfortune. "Thank you." Drei nodded in answer before looking above Blake's eyes, he stared for a few too many seconds before abruptly getting up and walking away. Blake blinked in confusion as Drei simply walked back to JNPR's room, as he laid back down he had a random and harrowing thought. _"Sugar Girl is going to hug me again..."_

Blake's nose at least could rest easy and was finally soothed, as for Drei, well, at least the next day his fur was merely smooth and shiny instead of coming straight out of a disco party from about thirty years ago.

* * *

 **Team JNPR and RWBY, Evening**

Nora had decided to have a "baking day" of sorts on Fridays where teams RWBY and JNPR would cook and then eat snacks together as a sort of cross team bonding exercise, or maybe it was just an excuse for more snacks, who knew?

Drei had been given the task of protecting the chef while he cooked from those who tried to sneak cookie dough from him, and so far he had been successful in keeping Ruby away from Jaune's work.

The blond male was a surprisingly good cook and when Nora found this out she had almost instantly pleaded for pancakes, with Ruby not being that far behind in asking for cookies.

Needless to say, the batter was constantly threatened with extinction by the extremely fast girl, but thankfully for the others, Drei was quicker to defend than she was to attack.

"Can you hand me the chocolate chips?" Jaune asked the Grimm who obliged him and grabbed them with his tail, constantly on the lookout for a red blur and rose petals.

"Thanks." Drei nodded before his tail suddenly snapped down onto a hand that appeared, Ruby pouted before pulling her hand away "Why can't I just get a teeny tiny taste? I promise I'll leave some this time." Drei just nudged the girl out of the kitchen with his nose, she would get the snacks with the rest of them.

Jaune just looked at the Grimm in amazement, he hadn't even seen Ruby get into the room and this guy had already stopped her. _"Yet another person that is better than I am at this stuff."_

Drei narrowed his eyes as he felt negativity once more emanating from the blond teen, Jaune saw the Grimm tilt his head in confusion. " _Maybe he had some aura that releases negativity at random times?"_

It really seemed that doubt and guilt were constantly emanated from the boy, envy too at random moments. Doubt the Grimm could understand, he was doing something considered outside the norm by becoming a hunter and a new leader might be allowed to have doubts about their own abilities and skill in directing people, especially when being thrust into the situation rather suddenly.

The reason for guilt and envy _constantly_ eluded the Grimm, unless he was envious of random things other people had and constantly performing some sort of devious act when people weren't looking there didn't seem to be a reason for those emotions.

 _"Speaking of devious acts"_ , *smack* Ruby's hand was once more halted by Drei's tail. "Ruby they will be done soon, just wait a little bit." Jaune said exasperatedly, Ruby pouted again as Drei continued preventing her culinary massacre.

Soon the mix was completed, Jaune cut all the cookie dough into little circles before putting them on a pan and into the stove, they would take about 13 minutes to cook fully.

"And now we wait." Drei and Jaune walked back to the others, Ruby looking dejected at not getting to eat any of the dough while the others were happy that they would get to eat more than _one_ cookie this time around.

* * *

 **JNPR Room, Night Time**

Drei had been sleeping in Team JNPR's room when he awoke due to feeling sadness from the sugar girl. "Please don't go..." Nora quietly said in her sleep, and the sadness was much worse upon that statement.

As a Grimm Drei could sense negative emotions, but due to being sentient he not only sensed but he felt them as well, Nora's sadness almost seemed to become his own. Drei got up from the blankets he had been given and shifted into his smaller form to move without noise, going to Ren's sleeping form.

Ren awoke to Drei's tongue licking his arm and raised an eyebrow before the Grimm whined and pointed his tail to Nora. Ren saw his lifelong friend in the middle of a nightmare and silently thanked the Beowolf before quietly getting out of his bed and moving over to hers.

"Nora," Ren whispered and lightly shook her shoulder. Nora woke up almost immediately and upon seeing Ren she grasped him tightly, "Ren... it was just like what happened then, everyone was gone, even you.." Nora's tears flowed from her for a time and Ren comforted her, "Boop." Ren said and Nora repeated the word softly, it was a code of sorts, they would always be there for each other.

Drei could feel her sadness seem to increase for a moment before it started to disappear, but he didn't pay too much attention to their conversation, it was a more personal thing and instead he jumped up on Ren's now vacant bed.

"I guess he wants you to stay here with me." Ren went a little red at what Nora said while the Grimm just started rubbing his back on his new bed, getting comfortable.

Ren would later realize that on the rare days that Nora was having a nightmare the Grimm would always wake him up, nudge the recently awoken individual to her and would then take over Ren's bed if he could.

 _"Why me?"_ Ren thought to himself as he was once again awoken by the Grimm, grumbling as he walked to sooth Nora again.

* * *

 **A/N I might change this a bit later on, I am tired right now.**


	4. Interlude: Duels, Pasts, and Truths

**Dueling Arena, Morning**

 _"Today is apparently supposed to be a special one."_ Drei noted, Glynda had called the first years to a room that had an arena in it.

Sadly this interrupted his nap as he had taken to sleeping in this classroom, Drei had chosen this room as it hadn't been used in the time he had been at Beacon. Glynda opened the door to the room and the Grimm jumped into the rafters before she or anyone else had noticed him.

Drei tried to get back to sleep but had a bit of difficulty doing so due to the sounds of combat and instead decided to watch some of the duels.

"Yang Xiao Long and Pyrrha Nikos." Glynda called the two down to the arena. Drei observed the duel from the rafters and noted the disadvantage that Yang had, she was more suited for close range combat and getting into her opponents personal space before hammering them with powerful punches.

Pyrrha had a spear and shield, which she used to attack from a medium distance and block Yang's punches when she got too close.

The Mistral Champion was also quite simply better than Yang, and while the blonde was skilled she wasn't on Pyrrha's level.

"Winner, Pyrrha Nikos." Glynda declared upon Yang's aura dipping into the red. Drei had to give her credit though, the blonde held out far longer than he thought she would.

Next up was Lie Ren against Ruby Rose, and Drei immediately knew the scythe wielder would be victorious.

Ren held exceptional skill in martial arts for close range while his weapon was suited for long range while also holding blades on the bottom which could be used like a knife.

Sadly the true test was reaction times, and Ruby was simply too fast for him to hit and could dodge every one of his attacks while he had difficulty doing so against her scythe, Ren mostly had to block it with StormFlower's blades. Ren was also not able to go for prolonged fights, in fact, his entire fighting style when against Ruby was more suited towards conserving as much energy as possible.

Eventually, the energetic and hyper fast girl just proved able to go longer than he could.

"Winner, Ruby Rose." Ruby eventually wore Ren out to the point that he gave up and admitted defeat, Drei noted that he could've continued fighting, but apparently knew when to throw in the towel.

The next combatants were Cardin Winchester and Jaune _Jones_ , Drei actually looked at this fight with interest before thinking on Jaune's last name... _"Jones flows strangely."_ Glynda had a minute frown on her face for a moment when calling the two over, apparently, something displeased her.

Drei felt that Cardin was at a disadvantage, his bulky armor and very heavy weapon should be rather easy to dodge for one as lightly armored as Jaune, and the smaller blond's weapon was also much lighter than Cardin's mace.

The match would simply be one of speed versus strength, but after a few seconds of fighting it became obvious to Drei that Jaune was going to lose.

Jaune looked totally unsure of himself and didn't have a stance he was comfortable with, in addition, he couldn't properly react to the larger boy's relatively slow speed.

 _"Does he have any training?"_ The Grimm thought to himself, in just a few hits Jaune's aura was in the red and nearly depleted by the man's mace, instead of just moving out of the way the unskilled warrior had tried blocking it.

Cardin prepared to smash his weapon into Jaune again but Goodwitch stopped him, "You need to learn to control yourself, the match is over." Cardin insulted the defeated Jaune before walking back to his seat.

Glynda breathed heavily out of her nose before calling it. "Winner, Cardin Winchester."

Drei looked at the defeated Jaune with little surprise, why no one else noticed that the boy wasn't that skilled after that fight was confusing, or maybe he was just old enough to notice these things. Glynda must have known something, as while she had no emotion on her face when the hunters in training left the arena Drei felt concern from the woman. Drei looked at Glynda before looking at Jaune and biting into his shirt.

 **Forest**

Jaune was freaking out when he went from walking out of the class to feeling something carry him around by his shirt. He saw the world blurring around himself and went very... very green before holding his hand to his mouth. Once the world had stopped moving and he was placed on the ground Jaune had to hold in his lunch.

Drei just sat there while Jaune recovered from his displacement and started carving something into a large stone that was nearby.

Jaune heard the sound of stone being carved into, and when he had recovered enough to see straight he looked at Drei, seeing the words he had written.

 **You are unskilled, less coordinated, and have far worse reflexes than your peers**

 _"He certainly doesn't pull any punches."_ Jaune thought to himself, had the Grimm taken him all the way out into the forest just to tell him that?

"I know." Jaune said to the Grimm, who carved something else into the stone.

 **How did you get in this school**

Jaune knew that attempting to lie to the Grimm most likely wouldn't work, Drei could hear things across a hallway and through two separate doors, a heartbeat would be easy in comparison. "I... faked my transcripts. I just... I want to be a hero like the rest of my family y'know? Prove myself worthy of being an Arc." Drei's head shot up at that name and he finally remembered where he had seen someone like Jaune before, it was a very long time ago by human standards.

Drei had encountered Jaune's ancestor, Joan.

 **600 years ago, Night Time**

Beowolf hadn't actually seen a human in some time, not since that upstart had decided to try and attack their entire race. The Beowolf had seen the arrogant lizard get sealed into a mountain for his efforts and after that, the sentient Grimm had decided to retreat much further into the forest.

While resting for the day the Beowolf could suddenly smell the mixed scent of blood and the ichor of a dead Grimm, apparently some idiotic human had decided to venture all the way into the deep end of Grimm territory.

Joan was breathing heavily as she walked into the clearing, she had been assaulted by many rather large masked demons before finally getting fending them off but she found herself in a location much deeper into the Demon Forest than anyone had even gone, and even worse is the fact that she didn't know what direction her village was from where she was.

Crocea Mors had served her well, the blade, when infused with her soul's energy, could cut through the toughest demon hide while her shield could offset the force behind most attacks when given enough energy.

Joan's Skill was sadly not useful in this situation, her ability allowed her to bring feelings of confidence and hope to her allies, causing them to fight more effectively and make it almost impossible to succumb to panic against the demons. This ability wasn't useful at all when she was alone.

 _"I need to find a place to rest... it would be no good for anyone if I never make it back."_ Joan looked around and saw the roots of a tree led into a small underground cave, they were far too small for any wolf or bear demon to pass through, but she was still wary of entering it.

What could dig something like this when there isn't a normal animal around for miles?

Joan eventually decided to enter the small cave when the last daylight started to fall. She was holding her sword at the ready, but she didn't see the red eyes of a demon in the small area. Joan finally let her guard down and stuck her shield into the opening, a little light could still get through the gaps but anything larger than a fist wouldn't.

Beowolf opened his eye when he heard the human finally fall asleep; she couldn't have been much more than a pup at that size but the ichor on her blade mean she had killed quite a few of his kin.

The human started to shiver and the Grimm noted breath visibly coming from her mouth. Beowolf knew that the nights in this area were very cold this time of year. Joan awoke from the cold and began using her aura to channel some heat into her hands, it also created some light and with a jolt she saw the eyes of a demon in the cave with her.

Joan looked towards her shield and saw it was still in place, "It must've been in the cave from the beginning."

The Beowolf just kept staring at the girl, tilting his head to the side when feeling her fear. Joan grabbed her blade and pointed it at the beast. "I have killed many of your kind today demon, don't think that just because I am tired I can't kill one more." Joan declared, but to her confusion the Beowolf just lowered his head before closing his eyes.

Joan let out a shiver before using more of her aura to heat up again, much to the Beowolf's annoyance as this generated more light which interrupted his attempts to sleep. Joan screamed when she felt the Demon's tail wrap around her body and drag her to it, she didn't even see it happen and she hadn't taken her eyes off the beast.

Joan thought the demon would cut her in half when he pulled her to his body, close enough that she could feel the warmth from his fur, but after what felt like a minute of him not moving she opened her eyes.

The Beowolf's breathing had slowed and she guessed his eyes were closed as she couldn't see the dots of red in the darkness, "Did you just want the light to stop?" Joan heard the demon let out a grunt before his tail move away from her body.

Joan could've easily retreated from the demon... buuut he was very warm and hadn't moved to do anything but prevent the light that was bothering him from occurring, and he seemed to know why she did it, after all, he had merely pulled her close enough to gain some of his heat.

"If you hurt me I'll kill you." The Demon just sighed at that threat and made a snoring sound. _"Go to sleep silly human."_

"You can talk?!" Joan shouted, startling the Demon who let out a noise of annoyance.

 **Forest**

Drei suddenly looked at Jaune and raised himself from his sitting position, Jaune felt the aura, or whatever the Grimm had suddenly become far more serious.

Jaune's face went pale when he suddenly saw the Grimm's tail shift into a serrated blade and carve something into the stone.

 **I will** **fix that after you get rested up  
**

The hunter felt a sense of relief at that, maybe he could just not come back here? Sadly Jaune's hopes were thrashed when the Grimm made a bed of leaves and pointed to it with his blade before carving one word into the stone

 **Sleep**

 _"He is going to kill me... isn't he?"_ Jaune thought to himself before gulping and walking over to the makeshift bed.

The hunter could've tried to run away or protest, but for once the Beowolf seemed serious about something and going against the Grimm who had a Serrated Tail Blade would probably not go in his favor.

 **A/N So Joan of Arc lived in 1412 and lived until 1431, about 600 years ago, which is why I placed her in that time. Also, she can hear his thoughts, so don't think he is talking like a human and just forgot how.**

 **Next chapter will be a bit... brutal... for Jaune, but not in a bashing kind of way, more of a "Drei is gonna train him until the dirt is his new bed." way.**

 **Also, Jaune's records were forged more than just a false amount of skill in this story, he has a different last name on it too. I felt it would've been incredibly easy to just do the Remnant equivalent of a Facebook search for Jaune Arc and find out that he wasn't on the level of the other hunters, but maybe that is just me.**


	5. Arc Training: Getting Strong

**Forest, 12:00 A.M**

Jaune was suddenly awoken by Drei, being lifted from his surprisingly comfortable bed of leaves into the air by the Grimm's tail and forced on his feet.

"Alright alright... I get it." Drei was still sitting down but Jaune could _feel_ the difference about the Grimm, today was not one of his normal lazy days. Drei gave Jaune Crocea Mors before shifting his tail once more into the serrated blade. Jaune's eyes widened and he quickly strapped the shield onto his left forearm and gripped his sword in his right.

Jaune thought that the Beowolf was going to engage in combat with him but he turned his sword-tail back into a normal one, and the hunter suddenly saw a Boar Grimm appear from the shrubs before it charged at him. Drei sat back, simply observing the hunter and young grimm from the sidelines and looked for the most glaring flaws in Jaune's skill set.

While Jaune had very poor combat skills one area he excelled in was strategy, he could quickly take in information such as an opponents strengths and weaknesses during a combat situation and in some situations he could use it to his advantage.

He had known Cardin would be slowed down by his armor, but he simply wasn't fast or skilled enough to defeat the bigger student. Just knowing about your opponents weaknesses wasn't enough, you needed to be capable of exploiting them.

The Boar had strong tusks and legs and it also had durable armor protecting most of its body, but as Jaune leapt out of the way he could tell many more about the Grimm, such as the fact that it had difficulty changing directions while in motion and the armor on its belly was much thinner than any other part.

Jaune waited for the Grimm to finish its now missed charge, and when it once again ran at him the hunter in training moved far enough out of the way to pierce the Boar in its weak belly, but while he was putting all of his focus into this one opponent he was rendered unaware of his surroundings and Jaune suddenly felt a claw at his throat.

An Ursa had somehow snuck up on the blonde and held his claw in a prime position to tear into the soft flesh of the human at any moment but simply held itself there, not quite piercing Jaune's flesh.

The two Grimm suddenly burst into black smoke and it floated over to Drei, the Grimm simply sitting as this occurred and absorbed the two Grimm back into himself.

"Always be aware of my surroundings?" Jaune asked, hoping that was the correct answer, and to his momentary relief the Grimm nodded.

Drei sat still for a moment, _"He needs to be faster and stronger."_ The Grimm then got up and walked over to the human before a mass of smoke produced a backpack of sorts, Jaune merely raised an eyebrow before the Beowolf motioned for him to pick it up.

"I have to say I kinda expected something diffe-" Jaune's eyes widened when the pack suddenly coiled itself around his body and the sudden weight nearly caused him to fall to the ground, _"This thing ways like 100 pounds!"_ Jaune felt his aura activate suddenly which allowed him to stand easier. Drei merely looked at the hunter before writing a single word into the stone.

 **Run**

Jaune saw his new tortur- er... _teacher_ , shift his tail into the blade once more and hit the ground near him, the hunter got the message. Drei apparently had something to be serious about and Jaune had a feeling that if by some miracle he survived this torment he would be eternally thankful, but so far it wasn't looking good.

* * *

 **5:13 P.M, JNPR Room**

* * *

The other three members of JNPR were worried, no one had seen Jaune for the entire school day and when Pyrrha had asked Ozpin about it the Headmaster had merely said "Jaune is in good hands, there is no need to worry about him Ms Nikos." before excusing himself.

 _"That was 4 hours ago and we still haven't seen him, where is he_ _?"_ The door suddenly opened and Jaune walked in, the blond's clothing was torn and his face was a bit pale. JNPR watched as their leader collapsed into his bed almost immediately when he got close enough to it.

"Jaune? Are you okay?" Pyrrha asked, but she was only met with a snore from the poor boy. _"What happened to him? He's exhausted."_

Nora looked at the blond with a frown, wondering whether or not she should search for someone's legs to break, it might just be their fearless leader went and did a particularly intense workout after all. Ren merely wondered what had put him into such a state.

Drei hadn't been seen for the entire day but that wasn't necessarily strange for the Grimm, he had once slept for so long before in the garden at Beacon that Ren only discovered him the next day while looking for a place to read, covered in butterflies who had a new place to rest in the form of an unmoving wolf.

It made for an unnerving contrast to say the least, a being who looked so similar to the creatures known only to cause death and misery on Remnant and beautiful butterflies together in harmony.

Needless to say that when Yang found out about it another camera was procured, apparently for the sake of writing an essay on the behavior of certain Grimm that they had in their Grimm Studies class.

Professor Port hadn't found it nearly as amusing as the blond haired girl had, and later made it a rule that Drei wasn't used as their study source as he was the exception to the rule that all other Grimm seemed to operate on.

The picture was still hung with a few others in the class, it was a rather nice one after all.

* * *

 **Days Later**

* * *

 _"Why doesn't he just kill me and get it over with?"_ Jaune thought to himself as he dodged yet another Ursa's claws, the training was definitely working as Jaune could now see the large bear-like creature's arms moving a bit better than he could before.

The backpack, actually a form Grimm that is under Drei's direct control, was very heavy and forced his aura to activate so it was constantly healing his sore muscles. While it greatly helped in making his body stronger and faster it had the cost of rapidly depleting his aura.

Jaune had noticed that every day the weight increased just a small amount more but it was getting easier as time went by, _"Guess my aura is large enough to do this."_ Drei had indeed noticed that Jaune, compared to even fourth years at the academy, had excessively large aura reserves within himself and had decided to take advantage of that.

The Beowolf would chase Jaune with his serrated tail for half an hour, forcing the hunter in training to sprint with all he had to work on his speed, and after that he would spawn Grimm after Grimm to fight and force the hunter to be aware of his surroundings until Jaune didn't have the stamina to fight anymore, Drei would then absorb absorbing them back into himself after halting their motions.

Jaune noticed his slight improvement on the second day, and every day afterwards. The hunter's movement was getting easier and natural, he could run faster, exert more force, and last just a bit longer in the training sessions.

Atlas Military had something called "Hell Week", which is a grueling test of endurance, mental and physical, that one was put through before they completed their training, but despite that it was optional in a way and you could stop doing it at any time.

Drei apparently didn't get the memo on the last part of that, and when Jaune had tried to quit once the Beowolf made it very clear that until he was satisfied with Jaune's improvements he wouldn't be allowed to give up, not on himself or his teacher.

Jaune suddenly dodged to the left and a second Ursa's claw appeared where he had once been. The hunter had sensed it.

During one aura session Jaune had discovered how to sense a short distance around himself, but he found that Grimm could not be felt by aura as they simply didn't have one. When Jaune told Drei about this the Beowolf had thought of an interesting way the young Arc could compensate for that and carved the idea into a rock.

 **Feel the Void**

Jaune hadn't known what he meant at first but he quickly caught. Jaune had found that almost everything in nature had an aura, plants, water, humans, bugs, animals, everything.

The Grimm did not, in fact it would not be wrong to say that they have a non-presence. Jaune had discovered this and with Drei's help he managed to figure out a way to use moving void in his senses to track down any Grimm within a short distance of himself.

The Ursa seemed confused for a moment before starting its assault once more, and Jaune fended the two bear monsters off while Drei looked on.

 _"He is getting better."_ Jaune was definitely tired but the Grimm could see he had some confidence when facing the two monsters.

 _"Of course the real thing won't be as gentle as I am, and his swordsmanship definitely leaves something to be desired."_ Drei wasn't exactly a good teacher in that regard, what with him just recently making a weapon by his shifted tail, it was more of a "motivator" for Jaune anyways and not actually used to attack anything.

Jaune was wildly swinging his sword at the two Grimm, and while it was doing a good amount of damage to them he was wasting energy here and there. _"Maybe I should get someone to teach him that."_ Drei thought as his "student" nearly succumbed to the mistake he made against Cardin when an Ursa thrust its claws at him, but quickly corrected himself and dodged the attack instead.

 _"Definitely learning."_ Drei would've grinned if he could, but settled for swooshing his tail instead.

 **A/N and here it is, Jaune collapses on the first day.**

 **I had a bit of inspiration with training Jaune from Naruto due to his similarly great reserves of energy compared to the norm, it makes some sense to me but whatevs.**

 **Also, if Drei had actually fought Jaune ... well... the hunter would've been lucky if his remains could fill a soup can.**


	6. Arc Training: Gaining Teachers

**Forest, Jaune**

Jaune was just starting to feel the burn of his current training session when Drei suddenly reabsorbed the current Ursa back into his body. Usually the ancient Grimm would do that when Jaune couldn't physically continue to fight to give him a break until his aura had healed him. Drei would then continue the training if Jaune wasn't empty on aura, but the hunter wasn't anywhere near that level of exhaustion.

"Why did you stop?" Jaune said, and Drei felt that small, constant doubt in him surface. Jaune routinely worried that Drei would think he was wasting his time with the hunter. Drei shook his head and Jaune felt the doubt in him lessen at the Grimm's action. Jaune had realized the Grimm could feel when he felt doubt or fear.

It made for quick and easy reassurance from the Grimm when Jaune felt he didn't have it in him to continue or thought his teacher would give up on him, but it did remove a form of privacy. Drei knew when he felt deep down and nothing Jaune tried could hide this.

"So.. what are we going to doing now?" Jaune knew his teacher much have something planned, he hadn't done this before.

Drei carved a sentence into the ground. **You need to learn actual skill with your weapon, you have many flaws in form and waste more energy than neccesary.**

Jaune hadn't actually thought of that, "So when do we start?" Drei shook his head once and carved a new sentence into the ground.

 **I am not much of teacher in that regard and can't help you there, but Pyrrha can.**

Upon hearing the name of his friend Jaune's eyes widened "What?!" Jaune looked at Drei like the Grimm had grown a new head, "If I ask Pyrrha to help me with this she'll realize I faked my way in the school! If they know I lied to them..."

Jaune was about to continue his sentence, but the Grimm let out a soft growl to quiet him down before carving a single word into the ground.

 **Friends.**

"... Can we make that decision later?" Jaune asked meekly, and to his relief Drei grunted before nodding his head in consent, but soon after he spawned an Ursa and had it attack the hunter when he was ready.

* * *

 **Team Room, JNPR**

Pyrrha had called Nora and Ren to a meeting of sorts, the three of them had been searching for whoever, or whatever, kept causing Jaune to look like he was worked into the ground and then some.

Ozpin had remained silent on the matter even though Pyrrha could tell he knew what was occurring, if the headmaster didn't know what was going on he would've actually been concerned instead of giving them the same answer as before, "He is in good hands Ms. Nikos, I assure you."

Whose hands were causing him to look like he had been to hell and back everyday?

"Did you guys see Jaune with anyone during the day? If it is Cardin..." Pyrrha hadn't actually seen the bully do much since his reprimand by Drei, but one couldn't be too careful as he might of just stopped for a short time until the Grimm stops looking out for the bullying.

"No, Cardin hasn't approached Jaune." Cardin had been Ren's first thought, but the two never really interacted aside from when they were forced to during class.

"What about you Nora?" Pyrrha had noticed that the normally energetic girl was quiet, Nora perked up once her name was called.

"Uhh... so... I... mightofseemDreiandJaunegointheforest!" Nora rapidly said before clasping her hands over her mouth, "They... both went in the forest?" Pyrrha repeated, with the energetic girl just nodding to the champion.

"...When?" Ren questioned his partner, and Nora took her hands off her mouth to answer, "Maaaybe about 12 in the daytime?"

Pyrrha got up from her bed before walking to the door, "Well.. that leaves us about 2 hours before Jaune usually gets back here looking like a zombie."

Ren and Nora looked on as their comrade walked out the door before shutting it, "Yay! Alone time!" Nora shouted before pounced on the lazy man and dragging him on a totally not together-together date.

 _"Thank you Drei."_ Ren thought as he was pulled to whatever his not-girlfriend had planned for them. Hopefully not another mall adventure, after he had gotten a few books to read they went to the arcade and Nora accidentally touched an electrical socket, and well.. they hadn't been allowed back in the mall after their power grid was entirely drained.

Nora hadn't exactly been... calm... after that, and it resulted in a fairly enjoyable night. Drei was certainly peeved when he had to rush the other two members of the team away from their room when he wanted to nap.

The Grimm might of been annoyed but he knew that there are certain things you don't interrupt.

* * *

 **Forest, Pyrrha**

Pyrrha was about fifteen meters into the forest when she heard the sounds of combat, and once the female spartan heard Jaune cry out she sprinted towards where the noises were coming from.

Breaking into a small clearing Pyrrha felt a jolt of fear upon seeing what was occurring before her, three separate Ursa's had their claws inches away from Jaune's throat and were in a prime position to end the blonde's life, but to her confusion and relief the three large Grimm had stopped moving before they could kill him.

Drei appeared from the bushes and the three Grimm turned into smoke before being absorbed by the Beowolf, who then looked directly at Pyrrha and motioned his head to her. Pyrrha saw a sweaty Jaune turn around before his face turned an interesting shade of white at the sight of his teammate.

"Pyrrha?" Jaune squeaked out upon seeing her and the Huntress looked at her team's leader.

 _"Hmm.. worry, not anger.. perhaps I should've just told them what we were doing instead of keeping it a secret."_ Drei thought to himself.

"Do you have any idea how worried we were? You kept coming back to our dorm looking like death and not explaining anything when we asked, and Ozpin wouldn't say what you were doing!"

Jaune felt the hammer of guilt at that but what was he supposed to say? "Hey everyone I actually don't deserve to be here, and the guy who is your leader is the worst fighter on your team."

Not something anyone would want to admit and he had taken Drei's assistance so that it wouldn't be a thing he needed to think about anymore.

Drei tilted his head at the normally composed Spartan who then took a deep breath to calm herself. "You know that you can trust us with anything.. right Jaune? We are a team, but more than that we are your friends."

Jaune was about to respond before he heard stone being carved into and looked back at it, Drei had gotten much faster about that during their sessions.

 **Mr Arc faked his transcripts to get in, and I have been helping him gain the strength, speed, and stamina neccesary to survive. I could use some assistance in teaching swordsmanship however, as that is not a strong suit of mine.**

Drei looked down at his own paws as if to show his problem with swords after Pyrrha had read the carving. Pyrrha looked at her team's leader, who had turned white as a ghost, and raised an eyebrow, "Your one of the Arcs?" Jaune meekly nodded and Pyrrha sighed, it seems that all their fears were for nothing, "Well.. then if you don't have the skill required you just need some help to gain it."

Drei merely swooshed his tail during their conversation, _"Better than expected."_ The Grimm thought to himself, he had personally thought that Pyrrha would attack Jaune before agreeing to help him, but perhaps that merely happens in one of the cartoons he had watched with Ruby.

The young huntress had the biggest doe eyes when she wanted something.

 _"Perhaps that is her true power?"_ Drei was pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of a grunt and Jaune being knocked to the ground by Pyrrha, apparently they were starting their training now.

"...this is going to suck.. isn't it?" Jaune asked the Beowolf, who shrugged before laying down and started watching, Pyrrha helped him back up before starting again.

Drei watched with some interest as Jaune was reacting to the huntress' swift attacks, not enough to properly dodge or deflect them, but enough to be noticeable.

 _"He has gained a great deal of speed compared to what he had before, actually seeing and, in some manner, reacting to her attacks is no small feat."_ Jaune was knocked down yet again and Drei snorted, it seems his swordsmanship was just as bad as his body had been.

Hopefully if Pyrrha trains him as hard as Drei usually does she will take him back to the team's room instead of him. Jaune rarely had the strength to walk more than five feet after their sessions so Drei usually just leaned him against the door before opening it and Jaune took it from there.

"Ahh!" *Smack* *Crash* Drei sighed _"This is gonna take awhile."_ the Grimm thought before starting his nap.

 **A/N I feel the way I got Pyrrha into the scene was kinda lazy but... iunno, seems like as good a place as any to address the swordsmanship thing.**

 **I might of made Pyrrha a little ooc when she first appeared but she had been expecting so much worse than a rather intense training session, and when I encounter something I think is going to be horrible only for it to turn out okay I get a little... disappointing?**

 **I guess that, to me, preparing for horribleness and having everything be fine makes me want to pull my hair out.**

 **Also, Ren and Nora are a Not-Item and go on Not Together-Together dates, and no, I won't stop putting Not in front of such things despite their status as Not Boyfriend and Not Girlfriend**


	7. Arc Training: Acquiring Skill

**Forest, three weeks after Jaune lost to Cardin**

Drei had to admit, Jaune had a great deal of potential and talent. The blonde had nearly zero training in the beginning and could barely fend off a single Ursa that the Ancient Grimm was holding back, but he could now fight off three that held no restraint on their movements or savagery and defeat them.

Pyrrha had definitely helped with that, she had helped to teach Jaune to use his sword with actual skill and form in addition to the more instinctive movements he had used initially.

Proper footing and form was something he needed to learn, "You are more of a tank than I am, and need to have a strong stance so your opponent can't knock you to the ground easily." Pyrrha had said and Jaune tried to form a correct stance.

"Like this?" *Crash* Drei did his equivalent of a chuckle after seeing the young Arc knocked over so quickly. "...Not quite."

*Crash* Drei did his equivalent of a chuckle after seeing the young Arc knocked over so quickly. "...Not quite."

Drei did his equivalent of a chuckle after seeing the young Arc knocked over so quickly. "...Not quite."

Holding and using a blade correctly was also something they needed to teach him, "You're holding your blade a little too tightly, hold if firm but loose so you can still be a bit flexible."

Jaune did so and noticed a difference in combat, "This feels a lot better..." Holding a blade with a death grip and changing it to the manner Pyrrha had instructed definitely had a difference, it felt much smoother.

Learning to use his blade effectively was still a work in progress, and while Jaune now at least had a good grip and a sword form to use instead of just wildly swinging his blade in the hopes of cutting his opponents he was still nowhere near good enough to give Pyrrha any challenge. The only reason Pyrrha hadn't immediately defeated Jaune in their sparring sessions was the fact that he had gained a good deal of speed and reflexes during his training with Drei and could somewhat react to Pyrrha's attacks.

The only reason Pyrrha hadn't immediately defeated Jaune in their sparring sessions was the fact that he had gained a good deal of speed and reflexes during his training with Drei and could somewhat react to Pyrrha's attacks.

Using his shield in the manner befitting its size was also taught to Jaune by his two teachers, as blocking heavy attacks from large weapons or Grimm didn't work too well and usually just left him wide open for another strike. Jaune's shield was more suited towards blocking smaller attacks and either deflecting or just dodging large ones.

Of course, if Jaune knew the hidden power his equipment held this would be different, but that knowledge had been lost to the Arc family over the years and only one knew of the sword and shield's true power.

 _"Seeing a younger Deathstalker carved in half when enough power is put behind the sword isn't something one could easily forget."_ Drei thought to himself as he looked at the blade, Joan had put most of her aura into that attack and it proved itself very sharp, but it still could only cut barely into his fur... not that they had actually meant to test that.

Drei had a great time watching those training sessions, as Jaune would routinely get knocked down by Pyrrha before getting back up and trying again. _"Just like Joan."_ The Grimm thought with nostalgia, she too had been determined, far more than what most would consider sane.

Of course, having a girl suddenly appear to help out with their training had led to some awkward moments for the two humans, and when Jaune had removed his shirt to cool down from Drei's training faster the Grimm had heard the Spartan fumble for a moment.

Drei had seen Pyrrha's red face for only a brief instance and let out a growl at the male hunter, suddenly causing him to remember there was a lady present and rapidly putting his shirt back on before sputtering out an apology.

 _"Joan would've been a bit peeved if I allowed that to continue."_ Drei thought to himself, remembering the first time he had been taught about things like that by the female Arc.

 ** _Flashback, 600 years ago_**

Ever since the silly human girl had heard his thoughts she had been following the Beowolf around nonstop, becoming his constant companion and constant annoyance when he was trying to sleep.

 _"Definitely a change of pace, having someone to speak with."_ Every other Grimm that the Beowolf encountered held only the instinct of a young beast, and attempting to converse with his younger kin was just a waste of his time.

The human had gone to forage for food, but with almost no land animals around due to the younger Grimm killing anything that moved her attempts had boiled down to trying to find edible berries to eat or find a river with some fish in it.

 _"She has been gone for some time... maybe she left?"_ That thought left the Beowolf with an actual feeling of sadness, he had finally found someone who spoke like he could think, but more than that one who could hear him, and they might of just left.

The Beowolf got up from the tree branch he was sleeping in and jumped onto the forest floor, he raised his nose to the sky and tried to find the girl's scent.

Joan had finally found a river to clean herself in, the wolf demon had been sleeping for almost 7 hours and probably would still be asleep when she got back.

Getting clean might be a bit of a strange thing to do in the middle of the Demon Forest, but taking a bath was refreshing and she really needed it, that Demon Ichor had soaked into her clothing and smelled awful, even the Beowolf had reacted to it.

Joan had closed her eyes and was lightly humming when she heard the Beowolf's thoughts, _"So.. the humans, and presumably faunus, have a removable layer of skin? Fascinating."_ Joan heard those thoughts and turned beet red, she opened her eyes and saw the Beowolf sitting on the bank of the river across from her.

"KYAAA!" Joan let out a scream so loud that it hurt the demon's ears, causing him to lay on the ground and cover them from the assault of sound. Beowolf also felt a wave of water suddenly hit and soak him.

Beowolf just groaned _"Why did you do that?"_ Beowolf kept his eyes closed as apparently seeing her is what caused Joan to do that.

Joan got out of the river before hiding behind a rock on the edge, "You don't just stare at a naked girl like that!"

The Grimm tilted his head, _"What does 'naked' mean?"_ Joan stared at the Beowolf from behind the rock.

"You... seriously don't know? Of course you wouldn't..." Joan muttered to herself before she went to put on her clothing. The Beowolf got up before opening his eyes once he heard Joan walking over to the Demon and sitting down next to him, sighing when she realized she hadn't cleaned her clothing of the ichor.

The Beowolf opened his mouth and the demon blood turned to smoke and was absorbed into his body, a couple bears, boar, and wolf demon's specifically.

Joan looked in surprise as she noticed her clothing was now cleaned of demon blood, "Uhh... thanks for that.. Beowolf."

The Demon nodded before laying back down, _"So... what does naked mean?"_ Joan blushed before starting to explain, the demon seemingly uninterested with the reasoning for clothes.

 _"Why go to all the effort? I see no issue with not wearing clothing as I don't. I don't see your face turning red when I walk around."_ Joan frowned at the demon's lack of understanding.

"I guess you wouldn't.. you demons must not have our same sense of modesty.. or the.. ummm.. equipment necessary to reproduce." Joan's face took on a look of horror as the Demon tilted his head again, _"Please don't make me explain that."_ Joan pleaded to whoever was above, but the creators evidently did not hear it.

 _"What does reproduce mean?"_ Joan blushed even harder at that, why is this her fate?

 ** _Flashback End_**

Drei chuckled at that memory, the girl could understand him and he could understand her, but he didn't have knowledge of many words in their language.

Biting Jaune had basically solved any gaps he had about the primary language of Remnant, _"If only I had tried that earlier, but then Joan wouldn't have almost had steam coming off her head after explaining reproduction to me."_ Drei looked down at the ground. _"I miss her."_ The Grimm thought to himself, Joan had been his first actual friend in his long life.

Jaune and Pyrrha looked at the Grimm for a moment when he unintentionally let out a small whine and to their surprise he looked... sad. _"What is he thinking about?"_ Jaune thought, and Pyrrha had similar thoughts before letting out a cough, turning the Blonde's attention back to their training.

Drei noticed that the sky was becoming dark and got up before letting out a howl that caught both the hunters attention, Drei carved yet another sentence into a new stone.

 **Time to go back**

Jaune had been staying out here far longer now that he had a new teacher, and he usually called it at around 7:00 P.M

"Same time tomorrow?" Jaune asked Drei, who simply nodded to his new student and his fellow teacher. "Fine with me," Pyrrha said with a smile.

* * *

 **A/N Made myself a bit sad during that last section, why am I so cruel?**

 **Grimm care not for modesty, and I also don't think they reproduce. I personally think Grimm just.. spawn.. from somewhere.**

 **In case anyone questions why Drei, whose fur is so durable that an attack that was capable of cutting a young Deathstalker in half only barely cut into his fur, decided to dodged Weiss' sword strikes and glyphs it is simple, he wanted to tire her out and misses take more energy out of you than hits.**

 **Joan was in fact naked during Drei's discovery of where she was, but he simply referred to it as removing a layer of skin as that is all he knows something like that as.**


	8. Arc Training: Rematch

**Beacon, Dueling Arena**

It had been a month ever since Drei started training Jaune, and one month since Cardin had so effortlessly beaten him. When Jaune walked back into the room with and sat with his team and the Grimm he felt both a sense of doubt and confidence.

While Jaune knew he had gained a great deal of skill in the past month with the assistance of Drei and Pyrrha his fight with Cardin had gone poorly to say the least, and knowing that the Grimm had attempted to convince Glynda and Ozpin to allow a rematch was nerve wracking.

 _"What if the result is the same?"_ Jaune thought to himself, and the Grimm next to him whacked the hunters leg with his tail. Drei had a knowing look when he gazed at the Hunter. "Okay okay, no doubts." Jaune said to the Grimm.

Drei was confident that his chew-toy..er.. _student_.. would do fine, as after that month he must've learned something worthwhile.

With most things the Ancient Grimm would only have a vague interest in whatever was going on while being half asleep or he would just lay in the rafters and watch from there. Drei apparently held actual interest with the result of Jaune's next fight as instead of being at a distance and nearly unaware with what was going on the Grimm was seated right next to JNPR and RWBY, and he was actually focusing on the matches.

"Ruby Rose and Pyrrha Nikos." Glynda called out and the two students rose from their seats before walking to the arena.

Drei hadn't actually tried training the Spartan but when their match started something interesting happened, Pyrrha, while she wasn't moving fast enough to intercept Ruby's movements or outright equal the girl in red's speed, was nearly able to track her.

Ruby presumed during their fight that it was just the Spartan's experience but the Grimm knew better, Ruby was going at speeds rivaling himself when he puts only a little effort into moving and before assisting Jaune in his training Pyrrha hadn't been able to do that, she was usually just as surprised as the others when he seemed to teleport.

"How is she keeping up with Rubes?" Yang asked after seeing Pyrrha block one of Ruby's faster attacks, "She _is_ an experienced fighter in multiple tournaments, Pyrrha must've fought someone faster than her." Weiss replied, but the Grimm wasn't so sure.

If Pyrrha was indeed used to fighting foes who were a great deal faster than her why was she just as surprised as the other students when Ruby raced to appear next to them?

 _"Unless she was fighting exceptionally fast individuals for the entire time we were assisting Jaune this doesn't add up."_ Drei thought, as while Pyrrha was indeed skilled and could probably make an accurate guess as to where Ruby would attack from actually seeing the girl was impossible for the majority of the students when she went as fast as she could.

Pyrrha looked as Ruby raced around before blocking the dull part of her opponents Scythe with her shield before changing her spear into a sword and slashing at Ruby who ducked before jumping backwards.

"You seem to be slower than before, are you okay?" Pyrrha asked, and Ruby just had a confused look on her face, "I'm fine Pyrrha." Ruby frowned before charging full speed at the Spartan who raised her shield once again.

Ruby tried to jump above her opponent and hit her from above and to her Drei surprise Ruby's attack was barely dodged by Pyrrha, who moved just slightly to the right before slashing at the speedy girl with her sword.

Pyrrha managed to get a hit in this time as Ruby wasn't able to jump back while mid flight and her aura went down to the mid green. Pyrrha also felt the Scythe knock her forward, putting her at the same aura level as Ruby.

"Did... they just trade?" Jaune asked, and while his teammates couldn't tell Drei nodded in confirmation. **"** _ **Pyrrha didn't react, she saw the incoming attack and dodged."**_ The Grimm wrote down on a piece of paper and Weiss smiled for a moment, she seemed to be correct in her theory.

 _ **"She couldn't do that a month ago."**_ Drei hastily wrote down when he saw Weiss' face, and the Schnee Heiress looked at him in confusion.

"Then how is she doing it now?" Weiss asked the Grimm who just shrugged.

Ruby and Pyrrha's fight had progressed slightly, and the two were at the lower yellow level of aura reserves, Glynda looked at the time and had to call it. "Draw."

The two duelists looked at the teacher with confusion. "What?" Ruby asked the woman who pointed at the clock. "Each match only goes on for two minutes and thirty seconds, we do have many students to go through Ms. Rose, and cannot spend all day watching just one." Ruby went slightly red at Glynda's words before the two went back to their seats.

"Didja see me guys? I was all-" Drei tuned the excited girl out, as while her ability to retell the events that they had just seen was impressive it wasn't what he was here for.

Glynda cleared her throat to quiet the murmuring class down and called out the next two combatants. "Cardin Winchester and Jaune Jones." Jaune took in a deep breath before getting up back

"Seriously? I have to waste my time with this guy again?" Cardin said as he walked up. Jaune felt the sting of those words from the stairs to the arena, _"That is all I was? A waste of time?"_ Drei's anti-presence, for lack of a better term, expanded a brief moment and Jaune looked over at the Grimm and his teammates.

Drei had an actual look of concentration while facing the stage and Pyrrha let a small smile out, "You'll do great fearless leader!" Nora yelled out, nearly getting on her desk before Ren coughed and she sat back down.

"Good luck." Ren said simply, and the Grimm nodded to him.

Cardin waited for the smaller hunter to walk into the arena, "Guess you have really bad luck Jauney Boy, your about the lose again." Cardin taunted the hunter.

Jaune didn't reply to him and just took his sword and shield out. Cardin gripped his mace in preparation.

"Are you two ready?" Glynda asked, and both hunters nodded slightly, Glynda spared a moment to glance at Drei who narrowed his eyes slightly.

"Begin." With that single word Cardin charged at Jaune once more, evidently expecting another attempt to use his shield to block the larger man's mace, but when he swung the hunter quickly rolled out of the way and slashed Cardin on the sides, damaging his aura slightly.

"That isn't going to work again." Jaune declared, and when Cardin turned to swing his hammer again Jaune jumped just far enough back to avoid his attack before rushing forward and hit the bigger man for a second time.

Cardin let out a snarl before gripping his mace tightly and started to use some lighter, quicker attacks, but Jaune was able to dodge them. Cardin slammed his weapon into the ground, sending out a very light shock wave that put Jaune off balance before slamming his weapon into Jaune's torso and producing the same effect.

Jaune's aura took the hit while the breath was knocked out of him, but unlike their first fight his aura had gone from green to upper yellow instead of orange.

"What was that?" Ruby asked, and Drei looked at the larger hunter, _"Perhaps his Semblance is the ability to release shockwaves from whatever he hits?"_ Jaune quickly recovered before getting back up and rolling out of the way from another attack, slashing at his foe while he was pulling the mace from its new resting place in the floor.

"Stay still!" Cardin demanded as he swung at Jaune again, but the blonde manged to duck under the mace before slashing into the larger man's side once more.

Cardin grunted out in frustration before putting some distance between the two of them, Drei looked at the aura levels and was pleasantly surprised. Jaune had lost a negligible amount of energy since Cardin hit him, but the larger man was now in the upper yellow.

Taking a deep breath the combatants engaged each other once more, Jaune dodged Cardin's next swing and smacked the larger man with his shield to stun him before dealing a heavy blow with his sword.

Cardin used his mace to block Jaune's next attack and kicked the smaller hunter away, Jaune grunted as he was pushed back before barely jumping out of the way from Cardin's next attack, but another shockwave followed the strike.

Jaune fell on his back before rolling away and attempting to get back up, but Cardin swung his mace horizontally in an attempt to hit Jaune in the torso and he ducked back down.

Cardin placed both hands on his mace for an overhead strike and Jaune knew he was out of options, that shockwave had put him in a bad position and he couldn't recover in time.

Drei looked on with narrowed eyes as he saw Jaune's shield briefly glow with a golden light, it was dim enough that only the Grimm and a single Faunus noticed it.

In an attempt to still have his face intact after this fight Jaune did the stupid thing and brought his shield up to block Cardin's attack. Drei saw this and in those brief moments before the mace hit the shield he had to wonder, _"Did he accidentally do it?"_

Everyone in the classroom grimaced the moment after Cardin's mace hit Jaune's shield, as the sound it caused was like everyone was inside a bell when it was struck.

"Winner, Cardin Winchester." Glynda said after the sound had lessened, and Drei looked at the aura readout. Jaune's aura at the end was Red, while Cardin's was in the orange. Jaune and Cardin were on the stage recovering from the ringing in their ears for a moment, and Cardin got back up first.

The larger hunter looked at the aura readout before returning to his seat, and Jaune had a hand on his ear while he did so too.

"Woah! Did you guys see that? Cardin was like 'grrr' and smas-" Drei once again tuned out Ruby in favor of looking at Jaune.

"How did I do?" The blond male asked and Drei looked to Pyrrha for assistance. "You did amazing, especially after just one month." Pyrrha said and the Grimm nodded.

"What was that thing you did with your shield?" Ruby asked, "It was sooo cool! and.. wait a minute, you said your weapons didn't do anything." Ruby playfully accused the young Arc.

"I'm just as surprised as you are, I just wanted to protect my face." Jaune said. "Maybe it is your Semblance?" Ren offered.

Drei listened as the humans interacted and spoke about Jaune's possible Semblance, shaking his head after a time.

 _"Were it so easy."_ Drei thought to himself, while he still didn't know what Jaune's actual Semblance was he knew it wasn't what diffused Cardin's attack.

Drei watched the next matches once again with only vague interest, he didn't have as much personal interest in them, but he did find Ren and Nora's brief reluctance to fight one another amusing, _"Why not advertise it to the whole school?"_ Drei looked at Glynda when their names were called and noticed that for a moment she had a small smirk, _"Oh you cruel lady, that is borderline evil."_

After the classes Jaune walked towards Drei, "Same time tomorrow?" the young Arc asked, and Drei tilted his head before carving a sentence into the ground

 **You still wish to be trained by me?**

"Yeah.. I still have a lot to learn if I am going to make my family proud." Jaune said to the Grimm, who just carved into the ground **Sure**

Jaune grinned before going back to his team, and Drei heard the headmaster approach.

"I had a feeling Mr. Arc would need more time to come into his own, yet you and Ms. Nikos managed to get him from last in the school's combative ranks to above average in one month." Ozpin said to the Grimm.

 **You knew?** Drei carved into the stone and Ozpin let out a chuckle "Of course."

Drei sighed, _"I suppose he saw what I saw, potential."_ Drei then started moving back towards team JNPR's room, he needed to take a nice, long nap.

* * *

 **A/N Jaune didn't win, but he managed to push Cardin, also am I making their energy reserves too low? I realized this while writing this fight but.. in a spar it isn't a fight to the death.**

 **In the show Jaune traveled through the Emerald Forest before fighting the two big Grimm, yet he was gassed from taking a few hits from Cardin?**

 **I call shenanigans on that, and I presume that the amount of aura percentage hunters are allowed to lose in these duels is way more limited than what they actually hold in themselves.**

* * *

 **Jaune's Semblance is a bit different from the norm just like I made Joan's, it is more about assisting others than augmenting himself.**

 **Joan's was similar to Battle Meditation in KOTOR and KOTOR 2, and Jaune's is similar but a bit different, I did make a vague hint about it though.**


	9. Arc Training: Forever Falls Pt 1

**Emerald Forest, Teams RWBY and JNPR**

It had been a few days ever since Jaune dueled Cardin for the second time, his major leap in skill and power after the their fight had been noticed by Team RWBY, Nora, and Ren who started hounding the young Arc for answers.

 _"Apparently he told them about me training him for the past month."_ Drei thought to himself with annoyance, as only two days after the duel Drei, Jaune, and Pyrrha had gone back to the forest at their usual time but they weren't alone, and to the Grimm's confusion they were accompanied by Jaune's friends.

Drei looked at the young Arc for answers and the evidently guilty hunter put a hand on the back of his head before starting to nervously chuckle "So... they might of asked if they could join our sessions, I mean it worked great for me right? Why not help others too?" Jaune, along with the others, let out a small cheer when Drei huffed before continuing to walk to the clearing they routinely use for training.

Drei took in a breath before exhaling, a few replicas of the backpack Jaune had worn early during his training suddenly formed near a few of the hunters. "Why did you make backpacks?" Yang asked the Grimm who just gestured for her to put it on. Yang shrugged before doing so and was surprised when she felt it suddenly seem to liquefy and expand around her body. "Ahh!" The blonde girl shrieked, her teammates looked at her with concern and Ruby rushed over to her sister as the liquid settled, seemingly becoming one with her clothing.

"You okay Yang?" Ruby asked in concern, and to her relief Yang took in a breath before nodding "Yeah.. but it is a little heavy." Yang noticed that the weight seemed much more prominent on her legs and tried to run, finding her movement was much slower than what she could normally pull off.

Drei had made these backpacks a bit different from the one Jaune used, and instead of focusing on the entire body like it did for Jaune they were crafted to attack the weak points of every hunter. They did attach themselves to the hunters clothing still, and weighted a good amount if Yang's slower movement is anything to go by.

Ren's backpack for example focused more on pushing his stamina than anyone else's and drains half the aura he used during each movement, forcing him to put more effort into every strike and building up his aura reserves and physical stamina.

Yang's weighed more on her legs than anywhere else as that was one of her vulnerabilities than Drei had seen during her fight against Pyrrha, she needed to be able to get up close to her opponents faster, especially if they were mid to long range fighters.

Nora's pack took the aura she uses in her attacks to increase its weight on her arms. Drei has seen that Nora is a bit too careless in combat and rarely takes her opponents seriously. While Drei knew that many Grimm or other Hunters would have a difficult time with her overwhelming power she needed to learn a bit of control in the event her attacks couldn't outright smack her enemies into the ground.

Drei decided that forcing her to learn how to pick and choose her attacks carefully would be the most productive thing he could think of, and hopefully she would learn this quickly or else Nora will quickly find her arms heavier than boulders.

Blake's fighting style was more suited towards sneak attacks after using her Semblance to trick her opponent into wasting effort on a shadow. Drei didn't really see an area in her attack that needed a tremendous amount of work and he just decided to assist her in deceiving her opponents and pull her Semblance off so fast that most people would have difficulty noticing her using them. He also assisted her in learning to move silently and without disturbing anything in nature with greater skill.

Ruby's style was more about building up momentum and hitting her opponents rapidly before they could react, and so Drei decided to help her with creating a defense in the event that someone can keep up with her movements. Drei also assisted in increasing her speed to a higher degree by essentially playing tag with the young huntress.

As for Weiss, well, sh needed to work on making her Glyphs stronger and creating them faster, while Pyrrha really only needed to work on her reflexes.

The Grimm planned on assisting them in all areas of course including speed, strength, and stamina, but each of them had prominent things he could train them in. Jaune had needed training and assistance in basically everything while the others just need to work on what they already have.

 _"Speaking of the young Arc."_ Drei looked over and watched as Jaune put his sword down and focused on his shield, the Grimm walked over to Jaune before tilting his head to the side.

Jaune forced some of his aura into the shield and it rolled over the item, Drei noted that the dim glow didn't manifest itself but Jaune took a defensive stance, after a few seconds he stood normally and once again infused his aura into the shield with a confused look.

Drei wrote into the ground, **What are you doing?**

Jaune looked at the Grimm with a frown, "I'm trying to get the thing that happened when I dueled Cardin to happen but.. it doesn't feel right when I try to get it to work again." Drei noted that the rolling aura was slightly different on the next attempt but it still didn't turn gold, nor did it glow.

Jaune continued to look at his shield with narrowed eyes "Do you have any clue how I did that?" Drei sighed at the question before writing again.

 **No... she never told me how the weapon works.**

Jaune heard the writing and looked at the sentence, raising an eyebrow upon reading it, _"She?"_ Drei got up and moved towards Ruby, intending to assist her in crafting a defense for opponents that could see her movements.

As Drei walked towards the younger leader Jaune had to wonder, _"Who else has he encountered that had Crocea Mors?"_

* * *

 **Beacon, Team RWBY and JNPR**

* * *

After the group finished training Drei's way they went back to their beds tired, but not nearly to the degree that Jaune had shown for about 3 weeks. Unlike what Jaune went through they actually made it to sleep without their Grimm Tormentor assisting them in walking.

Drei thought this was most likely due to the fact that ever single one of them were at a higher level of stamina than Jaune had been when he started except for Ren, who upon closer inspection was indeed asleep and Nora was faking his walking.

Nora herself was struggling to hold Ren up as her arms seemed to weigh about ten times what they should. Drei shuddered a bit and much to Nora's relief he created an Ursa, who picked up the unconscious hunter and was almost immediately turned into a large horse by the tired girl.

"Thanks Drei." Nora mumbled before she too fell asleep, Drei huffed before looking at the others. Ren and Nora had been the most exhausted among the group due to Ren having bad stamina to begin with and Nora only getting the lesson after her arms were basically falling off.

Yang stopped for a moment to rub her sore legs before looking at Jaune in disbelief. "You did that everyday for an entire month?" Yang asked her fellow Blonde, "Yeah... I was way worse than everyone here at first though." Yang shook her head, "Geez Vomit Boy, no wonder you looked like a zombie. My legs feel like they are falling apart." Drei snorted upon hearing that, _"Dramatic."_ The Beowolf thought to himself.

The two teams of hunters went to their rooms before quickly falling asleep, their first day of Grimm Training as it would later be called had been one of if not the most exhausting thing the group have ever experienced.

Both teams were incredibly lucky that they got a good amount of sleep that night as the next day Ms Goodwitch took a few students on a field trip to Forever Falls, apparently been asked by one of the Professors to take the class as they were busy or something.

Boarding the airships wasn't bad aside from Jaune trying to use almost every excuse that existed to be allowed to just walk. The actual travel to Forever Falls was one of the worst experiences Drei has ever had, the thing didn't feel natural and gave him a sense of unease when riding in it.

Drei can at least rest easy knowing that Jaune was far worse than him, as despite the fact that Jaune has ridden in these things more than the one time Drei has he was still turning green and his body was threatening to have breakfast make a return as the trip went on.

Team JNPR displayed far more support than the Grimm did for Jaune's situation and sat with their leader despite making themselves possible targets for a physically harmless projectile, Drei didn't want to chance it and moved over to where Team RWBY was seated.

When they finally landed Drei had to agree somewhat with Jaune when the hunter starting thanking the heavens that he was back on land.

The various students of Beacon walked into the clearing while Drei sat down in the grass.

"Its beautiful.." Ruby said in awe upon seeing the red forest, and many other students agreed with the fast girl. Glynda snapped her crop in the air, quieting down the hunters in training quickly.

"We aren't here to gaze at the scenery students, today we will be collecting a Red Sap that comes from the Trees in this forest. You will be doing so with your Teams." Glynda said, and the hunters went to their teammates almost immediately.

Drei looked around and saw Team RWBY and JNPR were nearby and lumbered over to them before sitting down again, they didn't seem to be going quite yet and he made no plans to move more than the absolutely minimally required amount.

As he sat next to the teams Drei felt anger and humiliation coming from nearby and starting looking around, making it seem that he was just inspecting the area but while gazing around he noted the negative emotions were coming from Cardin.

 _"I suppose he is still embarrassed from me stopping his bullying weeks ago."_ Drei thought to himself before getting up as Glynda led the students into the forest, walking at a casual pace alongside the two teams without a care in the world.

Laziness was in full effect today and Drei planned to take full advantage of the fact that he wasn't required to do anything taxing for the entire day. The Ancient Grimm would later wish that Time Travel was a thing so he go back in time to smack his own face for jinxing it.

 **A/N** **I feel this chapter is more filler than anything, but next one will be more into the meat of things.. promise!** **I definitely feel that characterization is my biggest flaw as a writer, but I will hopefully get better at that.**

 **D** **rei becomes a teacher for 8 accidentally. On that subject... how** **did ya feel about the training and things Drei decided to have them work on?**

 **Jaune doesn't have a clue how he did that thing with his shield and while Drei had seen another do it he can't help the hunter out here as he doesn't know how to correctly infuse aura into it.**

 **Bit of an AU next chapter, but we do have a perfectly lazy target that Cardin doesn't like to throw Jam at...**

 **Also, as a bit of self advertisement here. If ya like the Supernatural TV Series maybe check out my AU about it called The Primordials, but don't feel obligated.**


	10. Arc Training: Forever Falls Pt 2

_Almost there, this is the last bit I need to get out of the way before I can comfortably get where I want to be._

 _Bear with me :D_

* * *

 **Forever Falls**

Glynda had lead the group a bit further into the forest before handing out a glass jar to each of the hunters on the trip. The students had been instructed to fill each jar up with the Red Sap that the trees slowly produced, and Glynda also said that upon finishing with their collection students could explore the area and take in the scenery if they so choose.

Drei hadn't actually been given a jar to fill by the woman and decided to just take a nap, the Grimm found a nice patch on the grass to fall asleep on as a gentle breeze carried throughout the forest.

The Grimm still heard many of the conversations going on in the forest between the students of Beacon, Teams RWBY and JNPR were close by each other while many others had gone off to collect elsewhere.

Yang was busy collecting the sap when she saw Ruby about to eat some and quickly swiped it from her sister, they had just managed to calm Nora down, and while Yang loved her little sister she didn't want to go through the same routine again.

Ruby blinked at her newly vacant hands before looking at her older sister and pouting, eyes going wide like she was a puppy that had been denied their favorite treat. "Sorry Rubes... but we all know how hyper you can get with enough sugar." Yang said with an apologetic smile.

Blake shuddered and nearly dropped her book, last time they had to deal with Ruby on a sugar high Nora had also been on one. Alone the two would've been hard to calm down, but together they were a force of nature.

"Fine.. but as team leader I declare that if we get to keep any I am trying it." Ruby declared to her sister.

"Absolutely not!" Weiss suddenly said, and when Ruby turned in her direction the Heiress placed a finger on the bridge of her nose in preparation for possible headaches she might have in the near future. While she had accepted that Ruby would be their team leader the younger girls childish reaction to most things still irritated Weiss. "Why not?" Ruby asked.

"Because a leader needs to be in top form at all times in the event of sudden conflict." When Ruby looked up before her head to the side in thought the Schnee Heiress shook her head, _"Don't tell me she actually believed that?"_ Weiss thought to herself.

"Fiine.. I guess your right." Ruby said before going back to collecting the sap. Weiss blinked a few times before shaking her head and doing the same, followed shortly by Yang and Blake.

The four were startled by the sudden noise of one celebrity champion's voice, "Nora!" Pyrrha called out to her hyperactive teammate, she had uncorked a _third_ jar of the surprisingly sweet sap after having finished one off only half a minute ago and it was dangerously close to her mouth.

Nora pouted as Pyrrha stared at her with exasperation and put the lid back on the jar, giving it to the spartan with a frown when she came to take it.

Pyrrha gave it to Jaune for safekeeping and he moved to Ren with the other jars before whispering to his teammate and friend. "Hey Ren.. can you hide this stuff from Nora?", while Jaune held absolute trust in Nora with his life during combat and was her friend the team's "fearless leader" didn't quite trust her to not eat all their hard work.

They had already been forced to wait about fourteen to fill both the first and second jar, and Jaune didn't want to make that around twenty for a third.

Ren nodded before sneaking around and picking up each of the complete jars that Jaune hadn't been able to carry, the lazy teen looked for a place to hide them and Drei caught his eye, _"He won't mind.. unless Nora finds them."_

Drei felt himself being shifted slightly and opened an eye, Ren froze in place upon the mass of red suddenly appearing, it seemed to be staring into his very soul. The Grimm looked at the jars and quickly understood what the lazy member of team JNPR was doing and took each of the sap filled jars with his tail.

"Thank you." Ren said before going to the others quietly. Drei grunted before closing his eye again, but before he fell back to sleep the Grimm felt the mass voids nearby, but they were still asleep.

* * *

 **Forever Falls, CRDL**

Cardin clenched his fist as he saw that dog go back to sleep. Backing down from it had been embarrassing, especially when basically the entire school had seen it go down, and Jaune's recent jump in skill from a nothing to nearly matching the one that beat him effortlessly in only a month?

The leader of CRDL knew the Grimm must of helped with that, why else would Jaune go to him after their duel and ask for his opinion? Cardin might not be the most intelligent among Beacon's students but that raised alarm bells in his head.

Cardin saw that guy with the green shirt give Drei a few jars of the sap that JNPR had collected and saw a chance to get some payback. Cardin had seen Jaune sneeze violently when the sap came close to his nose, and for a Grimm with seemingly absolute senses it would probably cause an even more potent reaction.

Drei's ears twitched when he heard the large footsteps of one Cardin Winchester get closer to him and simply shifted his body to a more comfortable position.

Cardin seemed to just be moving across the clearing, but when he got closer to the Grimm he made of show of fumbling with the jar in his hands and dropping it on the ground. Drei jerked up as the scent disturbed his nose, he sneezed loudly with a few more following after that and accidentally stepped on two of the jars he was hiding from Nora.

"Are you okay?" Cardin asked in what seemed to be concern, _"That worked better than expected."_ The hunter thought to himself.

Drei let out two more sneezes before he finally stopped, and upon recovering he looked at the hunter with narrowed, but before he could do anything his gaze went behind Cardin who suddenly felt very heavy footsteps behind himself.

"Cardin! We got company!" Russel said to his team leader, and when Cardin turned to see the issue his eyes widened upon seeing what he was talking about.

While there were mostly small fry Grimm that Cardin was confident his team could beat with ease there was one that troubled him.

It had to be the biggest Ursa that anyone had ever seen, and not only was it gigantic the bear had a whole lot more spikes on itself than the normal Ursa in addition to them being way more developed.

Drei looked at the Ursa Major with only vague interest as he was more focused on the other Grimm that would be here soon, _"I suppose this sap attracts my more feral kin to the source of the smell.. interesting."_ Drei had never really bothered to learn about the habits his dumber and younger brethren had, it just didn't seem that important to the Ancient Grimm.

"Russel, Dove, Sky, you guys take on the small fry while I deal with the big guy." Cardin said, he was more suited for tanking big attacks than going after agile enemies. Upon getting an affirmative form his teammates Cardin pulled out his mace and taking in a deep breath.

The Ursa Major turned to Cardin as it felt his aggression and slight doubt, Cardin grimaced as the Grimm roared before charging at the young hunter.

Cardin swung his mace and used his semblance to hit the bear with the augmented weapon, but to Cardin's surprise it avoided the attack before smacking the hunter, knocking the wind out of Cardin before he tried to hit the Grimm once more with a normal attack.

The Ursa withstood the attack with far greater ease than Cardin did for his claws, and the hunter saw the beast's head snap to the side before it slowly moved it back.

"I hope you guys finish up fast!" Cardin yelled to his teammates, this thing was tough and he wasn't to sure about his ability to defeat it.

 _"This thing is just like me."_ Cardin, it was tough and hit harder than a truck but its movements were slower due to its size. Sadly having that knowledge didn't really help the human tank in his fight, and as he slammed his mace into the Ursa Major, producing the shockwave this time Cardin hoped his team would be done soon, he needed help to take this thing down.

Drei kept a close eye on these events and moved back a bit, the Ancient Grimm was interested in how RWBY and JNPR were currently attacking some younger Grimm that were attracted to the sweet scent currently all over Drei's fur. _"I wonder who will fall first, Cardin, or the reinforcements for this Ursa Major."_

* * *

 **A/N Cardin's attempt at payback might of backfired, I also couldn't really decide how to make this happen in another manner, but having him throw jam on Drei seemed a bit too childish. Causing him to break a few jars that took some time for others to get seems good enough.. right?**

 **Ruby might be a bit too trusting.. but.. in universe she has people skill problems...**

 **Also I don't plan on bashing Cardin, and flubbing it this hard will be a learning experience if he survives it.**


	11. Arc de Triomphe: Forever Falls

_Well, here it is, the end of the Arc Training chapters._

 _Hope you enjoy it!_

* * *

 **Forever Falls, Teams RWBY and JNPR**

* * *

"Where did these things come from?!" Yang yelled at her friends, they had finally finished collecting all of the sap and were about to start looking around the forest when Grimm suddenly appeared from nowhere and attacked them.

Yang sidestepped to the right of one of the Boar Grimm's charges before landing a debilitating blow to its side with her right fist, and then she activated Ember Cecilia into its stomach, firing off its shells and killing it immediately.

The blond haired girl saw another Ursa charging at her and danced around the bear's swipes before launching a heavy blow to its stomach, forcing the massive beast to its knees before its head was sliced off by Gambol Shroud's scythe form, Blake taking advantage of its stunned state to deliver the killing blow.

"Doesn't really matter where, we just need to stop them from hurting anyone." Blake said to her partner before blocking a Beowolf's claws with her weapon's sheath.

They were incredibly lucky that they had their weapons with them, if they didn't take them this conflict would not of ended well. The fact that all the Grimm around this area weren't anything as dangerous as a Deathstalker or the Giant Nevermore made this a whole lot easier than it could of been.

Pyrrha leapt onto the back of a Beowolf before she quickly pierced its skull and ripping her javelin from its head, she saw another wolf was about to take advantage of Ruby's occupation with an Ursa and changed Milo to its rifle form, shooting the Grimm multiple times before it could attack the younger girl.

"Thanks!" Ruby yelled out to Pyrrha, and when the bear swiped at her she suddenly appeared on its shoulders, putting the blade of Crescent Rose to the Ursa's throat and placing both hands on the weapon before pulling it back, severing the Grimm's neck like a reverse guillotine.

Ruby saw Weiss in the middle of fighting a few different grimm, her fighting style was more suited for one on one fights than taking on multiple foes at once, and while she was indeed winning it was slow going.

Weiss used a Shield Glyph to block the lung of an Ursa, shoving her rapier through its exposed throat after doing so and pulling her blade out of the bear before slashed into a serpentine Grimm, cutting the head off the snake in the process. Weiss heard a Beowolf behind her and was about to quickly turn and slash it, but the problem was dealt with by another.

The Beowolf in question thought it saw an opening to attack Weiss and took it, rushing towards the Heiress before it was suddenly pelted by bullets from Ren's StormFlower. Ren then dodged another Beowolf's claws and flipped back, dragging the blades on StormFlower to slice its neck, killing the beast in the process.

All of the hunters had killed a few Beowolves and couldn't help but compare the foes they managed to kill to the one that trained them into the ground. The teams found it was hard to think these things were once what the old, lazy individual they dealt with on a daily basis was at one point in his life.

Jaune was still a bit groggy from his allergic reaction to the sap but managed to take down quite a few Ursa, _"Plus.. these things wont just come right back after I deal with them."_ The hunter thought to himself, Drei's versions were more skilled than these ones, probably a result of some fraction of the Ancient Grimm's skills and experience bleeding into them upon creation.

Another Ursa had risen to its hind legs and was about to try and maul Jaune, but before it could get anywhere Nora slammed her hammer into its head, snapping the bear's neck a little too far to be healthy for anything.

Letting out a sigh of relief Jaune thanked Nora before looking around the area. The two teams had taken down many Grimm, but more beasts just kept coming. While Jaune was confident that his friends could keep this up for a lot longer, if the waves of Grimm kept coming without letting up it would only be a matter of time before they were exhausted.

A Serpentine Grimm struck out a the young Arc but he dodged it and managed to cut its head off, quickly jumped back to dodge a Beowolf's attack before going on the offensive. _"This is quickly becoming a battle of attrition."_ Jaune thought to himself as he killed the new threat.

Jaune looked towards the clearing and saw Cardin fighting the largest Ursa he had ever seen, Drei was also there and looking towards the teams.

Drei met Jaune's gaze and looked further into the forest at the other hunters. Jaune saw that Cardin was fighting a nearly equal battle against the huge Ursa, and both of them wouldn't last much longer.

Upon hearing a large buzzing sound the leader of JNPR looked towards its source and saw many wasp-like Grimm were incoming along with more of the typical variety, and just as the groups prepared for another round Drei suddenly appeared in the forest near the two teams.

Drei looked at the winded hunters before taking in a breath and letting out the loudest howl any of the hunters had ever heard.

The teams watched as many of the incoming Grimm violently shuddered before they suddenly started tearing into those that hadn't. "What is happening to them?" Weiss asked in confusion.

"Doesn't matter, we should just take advantage of their distraction." Pyrrha said to the heiress, and the other hunters agreed as they went to once again engage the Grimm.

Jaune moved to join them but a tail appeared on his chest, the blonde turned to Drei who merely gestured with his head back to Cardin.

"Alright..." Jaune said, Drei moved towards the hunters with the intention of assisting them, Jaune turned to the clearing and saw Cardin was getting smacked around by, and smacking around, the massive Ursa while his teammates were still fighting off the reinforcements.

Jaune took in a deep breath to calm himself before racing towards the two.

* * *

 **Forever Falls, Cardin**

* * *

Cardin barely managed to avoid the Ursa Major's next attack, he didn't need to have his scroll to know his aura had been almost entirely used up in his attempts to take this thing down. Cardin was breathing heavily as both he and the Ursa took a rest.

While he might not of been able to outright defeat this thing it couldn't do much more to him either, and both combatants were almost entirely exhausted by their fight.

The Ursa Major released a roar and Cardin saw a few minor Ursa manage to get past his team to the larger one, and Cardin cursed his luck as it seemingly got reinforcements. Much to his surprise instead of the beasts rushing to take him out while he was exhausted they instead raced to his opponent.

Cardin looked on in disbelief as the younger and smaller Grimm placed their paws on the larger ones body, the bodies of the smaller ones seemed to collectively shrink while the hunter saw the Ursa Major's injures start to disappear.

It didn't take long for the Ursa's condition to return back to what it was before their fight, its younger counterparts were basically drained to the skin by the time they had fully healed their older brethren.

"Shit." Cardin couldn't really think of any sort of witty remark as the thing stalked up to him, claws ready to end his life. _"Guess I die here..."_ Cardin closed his eyes, he didn't have the physical ability anymore to stop his foe, his arms felt like lead, his aura was almost entirely gone, and most of all he had no reinforcements to bail him out of this situation.

The Ursa on the other hand was back to full strength, and was in a prime position to take advantage of that fact. Cardin heard the Ursa let out a massive, triumphant roar. It was over for the fledgling hunter.

The Ursa Major was about to swipe at the weakened human when it felt a sword pierce a spot in its torso where plating didn't cover. "Cardin, you can open your eyes! MOVE!" Jaune yelled to the defeated hunter, this thing had definitely pulled a trump card when it was healed.

 _"I didn't even know the Grimm_ could _do that."_ Jaune thought as he avoided the beast's retaliation, ducking underneath its claw strike before jumping back to Cardin. "Did you hear me?" Jaune asked the motionless hunter.

Cardin struggled to his feet, he saw Jaune and the massive Grimm were having a standoff of sorts, waiting for the other to move. Cardin took in another breath of much needed air before moving back and watching Jaune and the Ursa begin their fight.

Whereas Cardin and the Ursa Major were both basically tanks, or knights in extremely heavy armor with low maneuverability, Jaune wore much lighter armor and his weapon was suited to piercing or cutting his foes instead of smashing into them like Cardin's mace.

Instead of crashing a blunt object into the extremely tough skin of this monster Jaune was cutting through it, and each cut made the area he hit just a little bit more vulnerable.

 _"Jaune is beating this thing with the same style he fought me with."_ Cardin thought as he watched the fight, the blonde had so far dodged every single one of the Ursa Major's attacks, and unlike Cardin it didn't have a semblance to make up for its opponents ability to dodge.

Jaune shifted his body out of a claw's path and slashed at a point in the Grimm's right arm that held no plating, cutting deeply into his foe before dodging an attempt with the other arm to skewer him like a shish kabob. Jaune ducked and slashed into the Grimm's legs, severing a few muscles and pissing it off even more.

The Ursa Major managed to get Jaune with its next attempt, knocking Jaune a few feet away before charging like a bull at the human.

Jaune ducked underneath the bears swipe before attacking its injured arm once again, actually managing to sever upon hitting the severe cut that was already there once more. The Ursa roared and crashed its skull into Jaune's torso, knocking the wind out of the hunter and stunning him.

* * *

In the forest itself the others had finished up with the other Grimm, and Drei's attention had turned to the battle going on in the clearing instead.

"Jaune's in trouble!" Ruby exclaimed, and the fast girl was about to go help her fellow leader before Drei's tail wrapped around her leg.

"Drei?" Ruby questioned, and the Grimm simply watched the ongoing fight, ignoring the distressed girl's pleas to let her go and help Jaune.

Ruby looked back at her friends and was about to yell for help, but saw the other hunters were also held up whit a few created King Taiju that were coiled around them and preventing their movement.

"Why?" Ruby said quietly, and the Grimm saw the look of betrayal on the hunters faces.

 **Watch** Drei carved into the dirt, he was evidently waiting for something.

When Jaune was bashed by the Ursa's skull Ruby started to struggle even harder than before, but Drei payed no mind to this other than to tighter the restraints and the bound hunters saw him suddenly focused intently on Jaune.

 _"Can he do it?"_

* * *

Jaune let out a groan, his vision was blurred when he opened his eyes and looked at his opponent. The Ursa was also recovering, using its head had been more damaging to the bear than one would think, and while it was dazed Jaune tried to get back up.

The hunter in training used a burst of aura to heal himself before managing to recover and quickly took advantage of his enemies weakness.

Jaune was unrelenting in his assault, slashing the weak points on the Grimm first taking every single opportunity he could to then follow up and pierce those wounds further. The Ursa attempted to fight back but Jaune was easily getting around its attempts to block or retaliate against the hunter. Jaune shoved some aura into his blade to sharpen it.

Drei noted from the forest that the sword had a faint yellow glow.

Jaune was surprised at the effectiveness of the aura infused blade, before he could only cut into the Grimm's flesh, but now he was managing to chip into the plate armor.

The Ursa leapt back from Jaune, putting a good amount of distance between the two and giving itself time to recover. Jaune finally saw the glow around his sword and his eyes widened, "What the heck?" The hunter said aloud.

Jaune noted that the blade's glow seemed to sputter out like a failing light bulb before it faded. Jaune filed the many questions he now had away for later and turned his attention back to his foe.

The Ursa itself had a good amount of its ichor dripping from the wounds it had amassed and its movement was hampered by the injures it now held, but Jaune saw the will to fight still hadn't left his enemy.

* * *

Cardin's eyes were still wide, _"First the shield and now the sword?"_ The recovering hunter thought to himself.

In the forest the hunters were released their binding upon Drei seeing that happen, _"He really doesn't know how to do that properly.. does he?"_ Drei thought to himself, _"You would think a member of his family would know about the weapon's potential, it is an artifact of history after all."_ The Grimm noticed Cardin's team had finished up against their enemies, three versus an army wouldn't exactly get the job done quite as fast as eight against an army.

* * *

Jaune and the Ursa were both breathing heavily from their exhaustion and injuries, but this time the beast realized it had no more of its younger kin around to heal it.

The hunter noted this as well, and when the two clashed once more it was no surprise to any of the others viewing the fight when the hunter started to overwhelm his enemy.

Cardin had managed to fight the beast to a standstill, and was only in danger when the Ursa was healed. Jaune was fighting an opponent similar to Cardin himself, and while he had lost to the hunter due to his shockwaves, if that had been taken out of the equation Jaune would've probably won.

 _"If this is any indication, my semblance is what won me our match."_ Cardin noted, and when Jaune finally killed the beast everyone felt a sense of relief.

Jaune laid down on the grass after the Ursa Major started to disintegrate, breathing in oxygen like it was life itself as he did so. Jaune noted that he wouldn't be resting quite yet, as his teammates finally had no one holding them back from going over to him, "Are you okay?" Pyrrha asked, "Yeah... I think we're okay." Jaune answered, Cardin nodded and his team had to apologize for taking so long.

Drei heard someone walking towards the area and felt anger, frustration, and concern all in one. Drei looked over and saw Glynda standing a few feet away.

"What exactly happened here?" Glynda said to the group with her crop in hand. Drei looked at the Ursa Major, its body was almost entirely disintegrated.

"...occupational hazards." Weiss said, and Drei looked at the dry sap on his fur with a grunt, _"They will need to know about the draw this sap gives to Grimm if the teachers are going to do this again."_ Glynda noted that everyone was more or less okay and merely had them follow her back to their transport where the other students were.

While the hunters in training boarded the craft Glynda pulled Drei aside, "Would you of let any of them die?" Glynda outright asked the Grimm. Drei's head moved back at the question and he carved his response into the ground.

 **No**

Glynda shook her head slightly, "If I may ask a favor, don't let it escalate that far in the future." Drei nodded to the woman before they both boarded the aircraft.

Drei felt the craft raise into the air, and saw Jaune try to hold whatever was in his stomach in while the Grimm felt uneasy once more.

* * *

 **A/N don't really have much to say about this.**

 **Drei wouldn't of let Cardin or Jaune die to the Ursa Major, and would of stepped in if it got really bad. Remember, he is very fast.**

 **Hope this was okay, I don't feel that battle scenes are one of my strong suits and that was basically the entire chapter.**

 **I also hate myself for giving this chapter the name it has.**


	12. Interlude 2: Rest and Report

_Sorry this took so long but I needed a bit of a break, an update almost every day since making the story was a bit taxing and plus I had just wrapped up a portion of it._

 _That said, try to chapter this chapter!_

* * *

 **Bullhorn**

Drei was looking at the Jaune with a bit of confusion, he had gone from being an unskilled human without his aura unlocked into a capable fighter with only a month of training while Cardin hadn't displayed anywhere near the same increase of ability in the same time frame.

While some might say Cardin didn't have teachers quite as effective or tough as the blonde did the reason for Jaune's massive leap still escaped Drei, and the others thought they had seemed stronger than before their single training session too.

Drei didn't have an idea of the two teams effectiveness, but Yang had noticed she was a bit faster than before, dodging an attack from an Ursa she thought would graze her. Ren had noted his ability able to fight without needing a breath was just a bit longer than before.

Weiss' glyphs had been easier to form, and her barriers could take one extra hit from a Beowolf before failing.

Pyrrha had managed to aim her rifle much faster than she usually would. During tournaments she needed about one second to aim before firing, but now it was like the moment she aimed it was on point.

The others had all noted the change, the skills seemed to come easier to them when they trained with Drei than on their own, maybe he is just that good?

Drei himself wasn't really thinking about their small but noticeable progress as he had been uneasy for awhile now; transport of any kind outside of his own legs made the Grimm uncomfortable due to the disconnect between movement of another source and his own stillness.

He had closed his eyes to focus on the other senses, as not seeing the world move around him seemed to help the Grimm slightly.

 _"The engine probably shouldn't be making that sound."_ While it was difficult to hear over the propellers the Bullhorn's engine was sputtering a bit, despite his worry Drei knew that Beacon was close to their location, he had seen one of its towers before closing his eyes. _"No stops then, but they will need to refuel this immediately and check the numbers more accurately next time."_

 _"Jaune is about to reintroduce us to his breakfast."_ Drei noted, the sounds the human's stomach gave off were consistent with the time just before he had actually thrown up.

On that day Jaune had learned to never challenge Nora in a pancake eating contest.

 _"Blake's ears keep twitching.. the bow's noise upon movement is rather loud to me, and must be to her as well."_ Why she kept it on confused Drei, if someone held his ears down they would find themselves in the medical wing of Beacon yet she did it of her own volition.

 _"Weiss shouldn't grind her teeth."_ Drei heard the Heiress doing just that while she was sitting next to a talkative Ruby, and while the two had a much better relationship than what it was at the start it the forest had been stressful and the huntress was tired from the fights.

"Ruby!" Weiss said, and the younger girl stopped mid sentence "Yeah?" Ruby looked at her partner and finally noted the Heiress' state. Weiss took in a deep breath, "Please stop talking" the Heiress said, and Ruby frowned before nodding, the Ice Princess was entirely not in the mood. Ruby and Weiss sat in a slightly uncomfortable silence, Weiss' eyes started drooping before they closed entirely, and the girl fell asleep on the chair instantly.

 _"And I now have a new regimen for her."_ Drei thought to himself, he again started focusing on the cabin, noting Glynda walking towards the pilot's seat, _" That sputtering must be worrying her."_ Drei opened his eyes when she walked back to the cabin, Glynda emanated a small amount of frustration but it wasn't overwhelming her. _"I suppose it is fine if she isn't worried or fearful."_ The Bullhorn started descending onto Beacon's helipad, and as the doors started opening Glynda walked to them before turning to the students.

"Please exit the aircraft in an orderly fashi-" Glynda cut her sentence off before jerking back, she saw a blond blur shoot past her and collapse on the ground.

"Land!" Jaune said with delight upon touching the sweet dirt and Drei once again had to agree with the hunter's reaction; he might not be quite as bad as the human with aircraft but they were disconcerting to be on.

If Drei was meant to fly he wouldn't be a Beowolf, he would be a Nevermore.

The other students started filing out of the Bullhorn after Jaune's display, and when his team found their unconscious leader. "Jaune?" Pyrrha softly called to him, and the hunter just mumbled. "Aww.. he's all tuckered out from fighting the teddy bear." Nora said, and Ren's only addition was to let out a snore from over Nora's shoulder. Drei noted his breathing didn't quite match a sleeping individuals, and had to wonder if Nora knew he was awake while she piggybacked him.

Most of Team RWBY managed to walk out under their own power, but Weiss had Yang and Blake hoop their arms around hers to assist the Heiress in walking, the Heiress could barely keep her eyes open as they walked out of the Bullhorn.

Drei sighed before he picked the Jaune up off the ground and moved over to Weiss with his tail pointed towards her. Yang raised an eyebrow at him, "Drei..I don't think that is how ya should pick up chicks." Drei just waited for a moment before the two girls allowed him to put Weiss on his back.

The two were laying on his back with their hands and feet dropping towards the ground, and once Drei got the situated the group started walking back to the dorms.

"Drei." Glynda called out to the Grimm, and the Beowolf in question stopped before turning his head to her. "If you would join me in telling Headmaster about this incident in an hour would appreciate it, you were actually there after all."

The Beowolf nodded to the woman before he started walking back to the dorms with the group, he could see that once their adrenaline wore off they felt the effects of fighting a veritable army of Grimm. _"Still... they did pretty well."_

After the hunters had gotten back to their rooms Drei started his way towards Ozpin's Office, he had basically nothing to do but wait for an hour, and decided to spend it at the elevator door.

* * *

 **Beacon, Ozpin's Office**

"I see.. so Mr Winchester's actions caused Grimm to gravitate towards the red sap on your body?" Ozpin stated more than asked. Drei nodded before carving another sentence into the Etch A Sketch-esque device he had been given.

It seemed to use some sort of dust to hold whatever carvings he made in place, and after a short time it would restore itself back to pristine condition.

Drei was thankful for this contraption as it made it oh so much easier to write without angering others.

 **The younger Grimm are attracted to it for some reason, I suppose this is due to the strong scent of the sap itself.**

Glynda put her fingers on the bridge of her nose, "Do you have any particular reason for not telling me this when we were still at Forever Falls? I could of reprimanded him for his actions if I had known." Drei nodded once more.

 **It would not of been productive, and Mr Winchester's near death due to his own actions is a discipline itself. If Mr Winchester does not learn from that experience I doubt any form of punishment or reprimand would do it.**

"He has a point, in the world we live in most individuals like that either die on the battlefield or abandon those cruelties. Such things hold little value when one is fighting for their life and requires assistance." Ozpin could see Glynda's frustration with that, while to the students who knew what happened this might seem like Cardin was exempt from the rules this is not the case.

Almost getting yourself killed due to your own arrogance and cruelty is one of the more effective manners to learn a lesson, especially when it is something as petty as pulling a mean prank on another individual.

Ozpin doubted that Drei would've allowed Cardin to die, but he evidently hadn't been concerned with the Ursa Major injuring him either.

"You wrote of Mr Arc sharpening his blade with aura when fighting the Ursa Major, and this is the second time we have seen from him infuse his equipment with it and impressive capabilities being shown. Far beyond what would happen with a normal blade." Ozpin was interested in Crocea Mors, he had read vague myths about the power of Yellow Death, but it had seemed like a bedtime story one would tell their children and not based on something that had occurred.

 **Yes, with enough aura the blade is sharpened far past a usual aura infused blade could be, and the shield can diffuse the force behind an attack using ones reserves as well.**

Glynda's eyebrows rose a bit, "The shield ability activated during Jaune's second fight against Cardin, didn't it?" Drei looked towards the woman, **Yes.**

"I find this interesting personally, as Jaune's great grandfather used Crocea Mors during the Great War, yet such a thing was never recorded." Drei tilted his head at Ozpin.

 **When did that war occur?**

"Eighty years ago."

 **Then I suppose the information was lost, as I learned of the weapon's abilities Six Hundred years ago.**

Ozpin narrowed his eyes at that, not much was recorded from that time was still around, but there is a single story from that Era which mentions Crocea Mors.

"So you met an Arc from that time, was it Joan?" Ozpin stated, his knowledge of history is one of his strong suites, one needs to learn from the mistakes of the past to not repeat them in the future.

Drei was surprised that Ozpin knew of her, six hundred years was a long time for a species to forget, but perhaps he underestimated the Non-Grimm. **Yes, she was the last non Grimm I encountered until Port found me in Emerald Forest.**

"I see.. and how did you discover Crocea Mors' abilities?" Drei looked away at that question, **Does it matter?**

Ozpin looked at the Grimm for a moment before conceding "No.. I guess it doesn't, but I would ask that you assist Jaune in harnessing his weapon's power, it would be an imme-" Ozpin stopped speaking once Drei started writing once more.

 **I have no aura, and while I know how to train it I have no clue how it would be properly infused into his weapon, Jaune will have to figure this out himself.**

"I see... well then, is there anything more you can tell me about the skirmish in Forever Falls?" Ozpin asked the two, and both Glynda and Drei shook their heads.

"Thank you for shedding light on the events Drei, and for keeping the students out of death's way." Drei nodded before getting up, he had nothing more to contribute and no more reason to be there.

Drei finally walked back to Team JNPR's room, all four of them were in a deep sleep, and Drei quietly moved towards his bed.

 _"Finally.. a nap."_ Drei thought as he laid down, he could finally sleep for hours again.

* * *

 ** _A/N This was difficult to get down and I am not quiet satisfied with this chapter, but I need a transition stage between Arc De Triomphe and the next thing._**

 ** _Blake Rule #50, Drei Knows (Star Trek Meme right there)_**

 ** _I said death's way instead of harm's way as he didn't really stop the hunters from getting hurt._**

 ** _I guess Jaune loves the ground more than he fears Glynda._**


	13. The Search: Discoveries

**Beacon, Team RWBY's Room**

Drei noted that not much had happened in the weeks after the Forever Falls incident, aside from the group training sessions having been pushed to once a week. Jaune is apparently the only one among them whose aura is potent enough to withstand that poorly disguised torture method everyday.

The Grimm wasn't complaining though as the others didn't require anywhere near the work that Jaune did, and he was once again spending most of the day sleeping, unless the teams want to do something with him.

Ruby and Drei were currently watching a show she liked, it was called Pocket Beasts or something, and much to the Grimm's amazement the flashing lights and colors enraptured both the young hunter and the Ancient Beowolf.

"Nooo! Thats a Flying and Lightning type! Crimson's Boulderon won't win!" Ruby cried out in despair, and Drei was surprised that he was equally worried for Crimson, the teen needed to get this medal if he wants to become the Beast Master.

 _"How is this so addicting?"_ Drei found himself thinking, and when the episode ended with the enemies Thunder-Hawk standing triumphant over the injured Boulderon he involuntarily let out a groan of disappointment, "Cliffhanger.. why?!" Ruby cried out, those who made the show were cruel beings.

"Darn it.. I guess we will have to find out what happens next week. It was getting good too." Ruby said as she frowned, and Drei shook his head for a moment, _"The creators of such a thing are clearly attempting to weaken the defenses of Non-Grimm, how have they not been discovered to be eldritch monsters infinitely more evil then my younger kin?"_

Drei realized he might be overreacting but the show was surprisingly engaging, and he really wanted to know if Crimson could pull off a victory.

Ruby looked at the clock and jumped to her feet, "Whoops! I lost track of the time with all the excitement, I was supposed to meet with my Team ten minutes ago." Ruby looked at Drei, who had a confused air about him.

"Uhm, we are going to look around Vale, kinda of a team thingy." Ruby explained to him, and Drei shrugged before getting up and walking with Ruby into the hallway.

"Same time next week?" Ruby asked hopefully, none of her teammates really liked watching Pocket Beasts or shows of that type with her, and finding out that Drei was for it had been a very welcome surprise.

Drei nodded his head in confirmation. "Woohoo!" Ruby cheered before he saw her run at full speed, and a few roses were strangely left in her wake.

 _"Do those petals form due to her semblance, or does she just have some on her at all times?"_ Drei had never seen Ruby throw the flowers out, so he presumed it was just a strange effect of her power.

Drei stretched before walking back to his bed and laying down, if someone needed him they knew where to look.

* * *

The Grimm was awoken from his nap hours later by heated argument going on between Blake and Weiss, the two of them seemed to be verbally at each others throat. Drei looked around and noticed that Team JNPR weren't in their dorm, _"Where exactly are they?"_ Drei tried to go back to sleep but found it difficult due to the noise and negative emotions.

While Drei wasn't _trying_ to eavesdrop it was incredibly hard for him to not, as the two had raised their voices during their argument _"They are arguing about some sort of White Fang?"_ Having only been listening to their debate for about thirty seconds Drei couldn't say he knew what they were on about.

Drei only listened in for a minute before getting up and walking out of JNPR's room, RWBY was emitting an outrageous amount of negative emotions and he wanted no part in it.

The Beowolf stretched in the hallway for a second before suddenly running for the forest outside Beacon at a quick pace, he planned on laying on a tree branch until this blew over but before he got too far away from the dorms he heard something interesting.

"Maybe we were tired of being pushed around!" Blake shouted at Weiss, but her eyes widened once she realized what she had just said, and that combined with the surprised looks on her teammates faces caused her to bolt out the door.

 _"Stupidstupidstupid!"_ Blake thought to herself as she rushed out of Beacon, she needed to get away from them.

Drei sensed her coming, and saw Blake stop running when she reached the edge of Beacon's walkway from a tree Drei wasn't at all surprised when he saw the girl reach for the bow on her head and pull it undone.

 _"Called it."_ Drei thought to himself upon seeing her ears, and he shifted just enough for Blake to hear his movements. Blake looked at Drei with wide eyes, but the Grimm just tilted his head.

"How long did you know?" Blake asked him, and Drei licked his paw before rubbing his head with it, almost like he was giving himself a bath.

Blake took that to mean _"From the beginning."_ The two hadn't really interacted as much, but he had known she was a faunus ever since the first time they had given the Grimm that bath? Blake has suspected he knew something, but he had only made vague gestures once or twice during the first week he was there before stopping.

Drei dropped down to the ground before carving a sentence into it, missing that dust tablet Ozpin had let him borrow almost immediately.

 **What is the White Fang?** Drei wrote, but he then felt that guilt surrounding Blake increase before she took off again.

Drei looked at the retreating huntress, _"I guess it is an uncomfortable subject for her."_ Drei moved back towards the dorms, he could sense worry from the members of team RWBY still at Beacon but it wasn't overwhelming the area.

 _"Hopefully they will sort this out."_ Drei thought, but he had to wonder what the White Fang was. Based on Blake's guilt it was most likely a nefarious group of some sorts that she was once a part of, but left it for some reason.

 _"Perhaps she had a disagreement of sorts with the group?"_

* * *

 **A/N Getting into the end of Volume one here... huh.**

 **Yay! 200 follows and 146 favorites! thanks for the support everyone!**

 **Seems that he really likes the most thinly veiled Pokemon rip off I have ever though of.. if you can guess where I got the idea of a Flying Electric type suddenly destroying a person's strategy to use a ground type you win.. something.**

 **(Hint.. it is a review video)**


	14. The Search: Emotions and Decisions

**Beacon**

Blake hadn't been seen since she had run out of her dorm room, and the sisters in Team RWBY had been worried about her for two days straight. Meanwhile, Weiss had a sizzling hatred for the White Fang flowing off her throughout the day.

Drei was getting frustrated by the onslaught of negative emotions, something interesting about a younger Grimm's empathy is that while they cannot feel such things themselves it is still an annoyance.

They tend to seek out what is causing them to feel such things before killing them to solve the problem until it pops up later. Drei hasn't done such a thing in over 13 thousand years, but he had discovered a new issue with Empathy.

When sensing an individual's fear, sadness, guilt, or hate Drei started to feel those same emotions, and while he knew they weren't coming from him and were merely bleeding off from others it was hard to not feel those same things after a time.

Drei had gradually been building up the hate, and worry, from the members of Team RWBY for two days and he was finally at his breaking point. While he could deal with those emotions for a short time he was only doing so with the hope that the issue resolved itself.

That hadn't happened.

The worry that Yang and Ruby felt for their missing teammate was constantly building up in Drei, and now that he himself was starting to feel concerned about Blake's well being it added onto the build up from others, compounding the issue for himself even further, while Weiss' hate for the White Fang did the same thing.

Drei was currently worried about Blake far more than the sisters and let out a whine but at the same time his hackles raised before he snarled, _"I_ need _to_ _crush those dirty animals beneath my paws and listen to their screams as I bathe myself in their blo-_." The Grimm shook his head at those horrid thoughts, he had not doubt that Weiss' hatred was far from that extreme but it just _kept_ _building_ up inside him. _"This is unbearable, it needs to stop."_ Drei suddenly got off his bed and went to RWBY's room, he didn't knock this time and just broke the door down.

The three girls jumped at the sound "What the heck Drei?" Yang said, but the Grimm didn't acknowledge her and just focused on Weiss before suddenly appeared next to her and taking her to the roof of Beacon.

Weiss fell onto her back from the sudden displacement she experienced and Drei suddenly started carving a sentence into the roof with a savagery she hadn't seen from him before.

 _"Is he trying to kill the ceiling?"_ Weiss scooted away from the Grimm, but once he was done carving his thoughts into the ground he just moved her back and she looked at the words.

 **Why Hate White Fang**

Drei was a bit more concerned with the question than the wording at this moment.

Weiss looked at him before narrowing her eyes, "Why does that concern you?" Weiss saw the Grimm start twitching. Drei once more started carving or, more appropriately, ripping the words onto the roof.

 **You Hate Become Me Hate**

"You.. what?" Drei shook his head before carving one word into the ground, maybe he should have waited for her to fully recover from the rapid change of location before asking her these questions.

 **Empathy**

Weiss read that before looking at the Grimm in surprise "You feel what we feel?" Weiss stated more than asked, and Drei nodded rapidly; her constant emotion of hatred was causing him to get a bit twitchy.

 **Answer Question** Drei wrote into the stone, and Weiss lowered her eyes, to Drei's momentary annoyance he felt sadness as well, but powered through it.

"The White Fang... they made my childhood, tough, to say the least," Weiss told Drei everything, and he had to admit that she held a reason to hate the White Fang...

 **So because of the actions of those who were violent, the actions of a few, you hate an entire race and group? What of those who are appalled by the White Fang's aggressive actions? I felt only guilt from Blake when she left yesterday, why would one feel guilty unless they regret something?**

"I..." Weiss was about to try and answer his questions, but before she could the other two members of RWBY at Beacon finally caught up to them.

"There you are! Why did you break our door down Drei?" Ruby questioned the Grimm, and Drei tried to respond by carving something else but was cut off by Yang.

"What were you two talking about?" The blonde asked, and Weiss took it upon herself to answer the blonde's question. "Drei, he feels my... anger at the White Fang. I guess he feels negative emotions like all Grimm can, but they.. affect you more?" Weiss asked more than said, and Drei nodded in confirmation.

Yang looked at the Grimm with concern, but all that did was cause him to feel a slight increase to the constant flow of negative emotion.

Drei almost growled at that but Ruby, knowing how she and Yang had made Zwei content at times, started scratching behind his ears. Drei almost closed his eyes at the feeling _"Oh... that's really nice."_ Drei thought. It didn't remove those negative feelings, but it did switch his focus to something else.

Scratching his ears entirely distracted Drei from the conversation the three members of Team RWBY here were having, he furrowed his eyes when he felt various negative emotions from the three, but Ruby never stopped dividing his attention from it with those ear scratches.

Drei felt the constant flow of emotion gradually slow down, and blearily opened his eyes once he heard Yang call out his name. "Makers... Ruby really pulled you out of it Drei." Yang said in an amused tone, the Grimm made sure to escape the evil hands of Ruby.

Ruby grinned once she saw Drei's hackles lower, he was a bit calmer now. Ruby cleared her throat, "We are going to find Blake, and... would like your help if that is okay?" Ruby said, and when the Grimm let out a sigh Yang and Ruby beamed.

 _"Not like I have anything better to do."_ Drei thought to himself, sometimes he just wanted to go back to that comfy forest floor, but... he had been a bit lonely after 600 years without interaction aside from things that, while his kin, dumber than animals.

Being the only sentient being among ones kin made for boring times, but as Drei saw the three in front of him over-planning how they would search for Blake.

He had to admit their antics were much more interesting.

"Operation Find Blake is a go! To Vale!" Ruby declared, but before she could race for the city Yang grabbed her hood.

"Hold on there Rubes, maybe we should wait for it to be daytime before doing this," Yang said to her sister and Drei nodded in agreement.

The Grimm still felt Weiss' anger, and could only hope she would direct it to those that truly deserved it instead of everyone.

RWBY saw that Drei didn't come with them, and saw he was headed and instead of going back to the dorms with RWBY he headed for the Emerald Forest.

* * *

 **Emerald Forest**

 _"Dealing with emotions that aren't my own is a pain when they get to this point."_ Drei thought to himself.

The Beowolf could sense a great deal of Grimm were drawn to him, and upon seeing them he couldn't help but let out a challenging roar.

It was all he could ask for, so many Ursa, Beowolf, King Taijitu, and even Nevermore were drawn to the negative emotions still inside him.

Drei leaped at the first Ursa and started to let all that built up anger free, the larger Ursa didn't even know what hit it before being it went from a large bear-like creature to ichor coating Drei's claws.

Seeing one of their own being turned into basically dust would cause most beings and groups to reconsider their chances and maybe run, but Drei knew that Grimm didn't work like that.

Until the emotions in him were gone, they would not stop attacking him.

The Oldest Grimm let out a _roar_ , daring these beasts to attack him, and upon strangling, and the breaking the next of, a far younger Beowolf that tried to sneak up on him the other Grimm attacked all at once, their instinct telling them that one Grimm could not beat all of them.

One hundred Grimm fought only a single opponent, one hundred and one Grimm went into this conflict.

Only one Beowolf left.

* * *

 **A/N Darn you empathy! making Drei sad :( and pissed! :(**

 **This chapter took a bit longer to get out due to personal reasons.**

 **Drei is a bit of a badass, he hasn't lived over 15000 years without a reason folks.**


	15. The Search: Disguises? (edited)

**Beacon**

Drei returned to Beacon at around 2 in the morning and he was thankful no one was awake at the that time, explaining why he was covered in Grimm Ichor would be a slight issue of carving the words "pest control" into the ground, but he didn't wish to deal with it.

The Beowolf doubted that slaughtering Grimm would step on anyone's toes, _"After all, they send children out to do the exact same thing I just did."_ Drei thought to himself, Ruby was a very young 15 years of age yet Ozpin and apparently the country they lived in wasn't terribly against sending her and others of similar age into Grimm infested lands.

Cleaning the Ichor off was a bit of a chore but Drei managed it without assistance before heading to bed. Drei saw that Nora apparently had another night-terror with Ren actually waking up to comfort her on his own.

Drei promptly stole the now vacant bed and let out a yawn before he laid on his back with his feet in the air, he began to fall asleep.

When he awoke from his slumber he had to admit that seeing RWBY above him was surprising, he had expected to not see anyone after all, _"And this isn't exactly their room"_ Drei thought to himself before blinking and getting up. "Sooo Drei..." Yang started, "you have a good sense of smell right?" she continued, and the Grimm nodded before tilting his head as if to ask her "Why?"

"We were hoping you could help us look for Blake!" Ruby said with a smile but Drei just looked at her in confusion, wouldn't that be a slightly less than good idea?

"That isn't a good idea, if people see a Grimm walking among them a city-wide panic will no doubt occur." Weiss explained in an exasperated tone to her team's leader, and Drei had to agree with her.

Explaining that he was intelligent or friendly without showing such things wouldn't really convince those who only know of Grimm as monsters, and who don't study their behaviors or know their limits. Port and most of the teachers had accepted that Drei was equally sentient to any Human or Faunus, and held the moral knowledge to not go and just start slaughtering like other Grimm do.

Most of the teams at Beacon also knew this, but Teams JNPR and RWBY had the most interactions with him among the students and knew from personal experience he wouldn't actually harm them, but for civilians he would just be another monster.

Yang suddenly grinned, "We'll dress him up in a disguise!" The blonde declared and Drei just tilted his head, _"What disguise could possible hide what I am from civilians?"_ Drei thought to himself.

"We could just say he is a large dog dressed up for some sort of costume party." Ruby offered, but that would still cause a panic when people see a Grimm... if they were to actually disguise him they would need a large costume as the Grimm was fairly tall, even while sitting he is slightly taller than Ruby.

Team RWBY kept going back and forth with ideas for how to sneak Drei into Vale without making a large commotion and he just shook his head at their ideas.

Yang suddenly had an idea, apparently packed a little too much when coming to Beacon and pulled out a costume of a dog skeleton that she and Ruby had dressed Zwei up in on a Halloween one year. It was a bit small but Drei was capable of shifting his size to a degree, pushing himself down that small would be a difficult though.

"He could wear this." Yang said and the other two girls found that they couldn't offer a better idea, it was basically all they had that could possibly work that wouldn't immediately set off alarm bells throughout Vale.

Drei looked at the costume and just shook his head. It was small enough that compacting his mass to accommodate it would be was uncomfortable. _"This cannot possibly work."_ Drei thought to himself, and just carved into the ground.

 **Rooftops**

Yang and Ruby were disappointing that their idea was turned down, but accepted that giving him a costume would just have to come later. The search group prepared to depart once they were done gathering their things.

 **Vale**

Ruby, Weiss, and Yang, had been searching for Blake in the city for a few hours and haven't found any solid leads that actually got them somewhere yet, but the only thing that amazed Drei was that not one civilian had seen him jumping around from roof to roof in that time.

Drei had been tracking the scent of Blake all around town while the teams followed him, and the group had been informed by a few people that she was seen with that Sun guy from before.

After yet another lead turned out to be nothing Drei felt Ruby's frustration go just that tiny bit higher. It was almost 3 P.M and they hadn't really come any closer to finding Blake then when they began.

"That is the tenth lead we followed with zero reward and it has been _hours_ since we started, let's just call the police and have them deal with it." Weiss suggested, but Ruby was entirely against that.

"Ughh.. _Weiss_." Ruby crossed her arms in irritation, Weiss had been almost no help during their search. "It was just a suggestion!" Ruby shook her head, "A _bad_ one maybe."

"Maybe we should hear Blake's side of the story before judging her." Yang said, and on a nearby rooftop Drei widened one eye at her suggestion, _"Shouldn't she be the one to explode at Weiss suggestion? Blake is her partner after all."_

"I think that when we hear her side you will realize that _I_ was right that she is guilty." Weiss said, and Drei heard sudden footsteps before a girl appeared behind the group.

"And I think Weiss' hair looks amazing!" Ruby nearly jumped out of her skin upon hearing that voice, "Penny?!" Drei spared a glance at the group from the rooftop he was currently on before looking at the newcomer. She seemed a bit pale and Drei narrowed his eyes upon discovering her scent. _"This 'Penny' does not smell correct."_

Drei jumped onto a nearby roof while the four spoke with one another, and after sniffing the air for a short time he could faintly smell another trail of the shampoo that Blake typically used.

Drei looked back at the group and saw Yang and Weiss were sneakily sprinting away from the new girl and Ruby, _"I guess we are splitting up now."_ Drei started to follow the scent, and he kept picking up and following it until he discovered another one with it after a few hours.

 _"Blake and... a monkey? No.. a Faunus with monkey-like traits are together."_ Drei looked towards where the scent was coming from and noticed it was nearing nighttime. The scent was the most potent yet though, possibly where she is currently.

Drei looked around and didn't see any of the other members of the search party nearby, he considered looking for them but decided against it, _"Might as well just find her first."_ Drei leapt from building to building, rapidly approaching the docks.

 **Vale, Docks**

Blake and Sun had been scoping out the activities at the docks for some time now, some Schnee dust containers had been conveniently left unguarded and it it looks like they were being prepared for something, or someone. Sun had gone off while nothing was happening.

"Did I miss anything?" Sun asked Blake and she turned to look at him as he sat down, "Not really, they offloaded the crates from the boat but now they are just sitting there.

While the two spoke Blake suddenly felt a tap her on the leg, "Sun.. can you please stop that?" Blake said to her current partner, "What are you talking abo-" Blake heard Sun cut himself off before he suddenly took in a deep breath, but before he could make any sound he was muffled.

Blake snapped her head to him, prepared to help fight whoever was up here with them when she saw Drei sitting in between them and Sun struggling with the tail wrapped around his mouth.

 _"How did this thing sneak up on us?!"_ Sun thought to himself while struggling with the Grimm's tail. Sun looked at Blake and let out a muffled yell for help or for her to run, but to his surprise she just sighed when she saw the Grimm.

"If Sun doesn't scream will you release him?" Sun's brain broke while he stared at Blake for a moment, but it wasn't long until his brain restarted, _"Why is she trying to BARGAIN with this thing!_ _"_

Drei nodded to her question much to Sun's surprise. "Okay.. Sun, don't make a loud commotion when he unwraps his tail, this is Drei by the way."

The Grimm, Drei apparently, unwrapped his tail from Sun's mouth without ceremony. "What is this thing!" Sun whispered.

"Drei is... a really smart Grimm. He had been at Beacon for awhile now. He won't hurt us." Blake reassured Sun, and to his surprise the Grimm joined them in laying down to observe the area

"Friendly Grimm... okay.. why not?" Sun seemed to be in slight denial at such a concept, but the Beowolf hadn't moved to do anything so that was a good sign.

Drei turned to Blake for an explanation as to what the two of them were here for, he could clearly see they were scoping out the activity, but didn't know why.

Before any such thing could take place a bullhorn suddenly appeared with its searchlights looking for a landing place near the dusk.

Drei saw a few individuals walk out of the craft with cloaks on and masks that looks a great deal like a Grimm's.

Blake let out a gasp upon seeing them "Oh no..." Sun looked at the men coming out, "Is that them?" Drei saw a symbol on one of the men's backs and frowned, _"That looks a lot like a wolf."_

"Yes... its _them_." Blake confirmed with a slight tone of sadness, and Drei looked on as they got to work loading up the crates. "You really didn't think they were behind it, did you?" Sun questioned, and Blake shook her head.

"I knew deep down they were, but I just didn't want to be right." Drei saw a man come out of the bullhorn and could feel his frustration.

"Hey! Whats the holdup?! We're not exactly the most inconspicuous bunch of thieves at the moment at the moment so why don't you animals try to pick up the pace!"

Blake looked on in confusion at the human's appearance, "This isn't right, the White Fang would never work with a Human, especially not one like that." Drei and Sun looked as she unsheathed Gambol Shroud before walking off the edge of the roof. Drei didn't react as he knew a fall from a simple height like that would be effortless to survive for an aura user.

"Hey, what are you doing?!" Sun asked Blake as she fell into a crouched position behind a few crates.

Drei just looked at the events before him with a resigned acceptance, things wouldn't so calm in a few minutes soon. _"Why do I stay with them?"_ Drei heard Blake questioning the White Fang over their involvement with the man before the sounds of even more bullhorns incoming reached the Grimm's ears. Drei stuck to the shadows while he saw Sun move closer to Blake.

"Well.. I wouldn't call it a _little_ operation." The man said, and Drei saw Blake look at the two new air vehicles while the man smiled, Drei saw him slam his cane on the ground which resulted in a rather large explosion that knocked Blake away from him.

 _"Fantastic."_ Drei thought to himself upon seeing that, he hoped that the other members of RWBY heard that explosion and would get here soon, Blake and that Sun guy might not be enough to take all these people out.

* * *

 **A/N** **Needed to edit this for story-building reasons... also, did no one find it weird that teenagers are sent to massacre Grimm to the approval of the entire world?**

 **Anime Morality strikes again!**

 **This took a bit longer to get out than normal, but I really need to put myself to a schedule. Yang has way too much stuff packed...**

 **Anyways, closing in on the end of RWBY Volume One here.. either next chapter or two chapters from now.**

 **Drei might of gotten a bit sidetracked when he encountered Blake and Sun... whoopsies.**


	16. The Search: Dockside Brawl

_I view fight scenes to be my greatest flaw when writing and these next few chapters will be about the dockside fight at the end of volume 1, so constructive criticism would be appreciated._

 _Hopefully I can get ideas on how to write fight scenes better than I currently do._

 _Flames not to so much, but anyways without further ado_ _, Chapter 16._

* * *

 **Vale Streets**

* * *

It was nearing night as Ruby kept up her search. It had been some time since Drei, Weiss, and Yang had bailed on her, but she wasn't exactly _alone_ despite this.

That strange girl named Penny she had met during the team's last visit to Vale had reappeared. Ruby's teammates had abandoned her to the fate of searching for Blake with her and while the girl didn't seem like a mean or rude person she was just... weird.

The fact that of she had known in one encounter with Blake what Ruby and her team hadn't in over a month was slightly unnerving.

Drei had figured that out quickly as well, but he was an ancient grimm that held senses on a level that was a good deal above what any human or faunus known to her was capable of, he didn't count.

Ruby knew that his eyesight at least was far greater than most, while her immense speed usually caused the other students to jump in surprise when she seemed to just _appear_ Drei had never been taken off guard and seemed to always be aware that she was coming, Ruby had even seen him track her movements during a training session with little issue.

The two hunters had been walking in an only slightly uncomfortable silence for a time as the last batch of questions before Penny decided to speak up once more. "So, Blake is your friend?" the girl asked.

Ruby sighed as they continue to walk down the sidewalk "Yes Penny." The other girl was exceptionally curious about basically anything they came across, and now it seemed she had finally decided to ask about their current problem.

"But, you're mad at her," Penny said while tilting her head in confusion.

Ruby looked back at her before answering, "Well... I'm more of worried, Weiss is the one angry at her." That was to be as good of an explanation as Ruby could think of.

"I see.. is she friends with Blake?" Penny asked.

"That's... kind of up in the air right now," Ruby responded. Penny pursued her lips while she contemplated this, and upon her asking why again Ruby now knew of someone who was more socially awkward than her.

With a sigh Ruby answered the strange girl's question, "Blake.. might not be who we thought she was."

Penny let out a gasp, "Is she a man?" Ruby blinked in confusion at that question, "n.. no, she's..." Ruby sighed before turning around and facing Penny.

"I don't know exactly what she is, we didn't get the chance to ask before she left, but I do know that my teammate and sister's partner might be hurt or.. maybe worse." Ruby grimaced after finishing that sentence before continuing to walk down the street. _"Please be okay Blake."_

Even if Blake was a member of the White Fang she is still their teammate, their _friend_.

"I don't have a lot of friends, but if I did, I would want them to talk to me about things." Penny said and Ruby turned her head to the side as they continued walking "me too.." she said softly.

The two continued on their way, walking down the street in silence for a time when they heard an explosion, Penny and Ruby looked towards where it came from and saw a pillar of smoke coming from the docks across town.

"Oh, no..." Ruby thought aloud.

"That doesn't seem to be a normal occurrence," Penny commented to her companion, and Ruby could only nod at that assessment.

"We need to get over there. _fast_." Ruby replied, and grabbed onto Penny before rushing towards the docks at full speed, but the younger girl found that she was moving much slower than she normally would even when carrying another person.

Ruby grunted in effort while racing towards the docks with Penny in tow. As she ran towards their new destination Ruby had a thought go through her head at the effort of moving with the slim girl piggy-backing on her. _"Why does Penny weigh so much?"_

* * *

 **Docks**

Blake let out a cough as she recovered from the explosion, but couldn't keep still for very long as Roman advanced on her location. Once she heard his gun's clicking sound Blake sprung into action, rolling away from his attack before jumping to her feet and running behind a few nearby containers, she continued moving and eventually found a place to hide. Blake was thankful that she had kept going when a few rounds flew past where she had been pierced through a container that held highly volatile cargo, the container detonated in a massive fireball with a pillar of smoke rising into the sky.

 _"I hope someone saw that."_ She felt a worrying amount of heat from the fire wash over her body, but she was relieved to find herself unharmed.

Roman laughed as she attempted to hide from him, slowly walking towards his opponent's general location. "Here kitty kitty..." The man taunted as he approached. He was surrounded by shipping containers and constantly checking around for any trace of clothing or movement.

Torchwick opened his mouth but before he could start another insult about her nature a banana peel landed on his head, Roman growled as the fruit hit his hat and looked for where it came from.

Hearing someone let out a whistle, Roman's turned his attention to the container above himself. Sun was there glaring at the man.

"Leave her alone!" He said before he jumped down towards Roman, stepping on his face and flipping off the new platform. Roman was forced to look into the sky from the pavement he found himself suddenly being acquainted with as Sun landed a few feet away.

Sun readied himself for a fight against the crime boss when the Bullheads above the docks opened up with more soldiers repelling down into the area, the monkey faunus was quickly surrounded.

Roman saw his current allies descend while he got up from the ground and smirked upon seeing the monkey boy surrounded. "Not the freshest banana in the bunch, are you kid?" Roman taunted Sun, and the moment after he finished insulting him the White Fang members charged at the monkey boy. Sun managed to evade a few attacks from his new opponents before delivering a hard punch to one of his opponents' stomach, causing the man to stumble backward from the pain before Sun stepped forward, spun his body around, and smashed his heel into the man's torso, knocking him out of the fight.

The criminal rolled his eyes once the monkey faunus got into it, casually smacking the supposedly skilled terrorists away with ease.

Sun managed to evade a few attacks from his new opponents before delivering a hard punch to one of his opponents' stomach, causing the man to stumble backward from the pain before Sun stepped forward, spun his body around, and smashed his heel into the man's torso, knocking him out of the fight.

The monkey faunus quickly rolled as another man slammed a war-hammer where he just was, Sun reached into his jacket and took out four red sticks. he rapidly linked them together into a staff which he used to jab the man with the hammer in the torso to make him stumble for a second, in that moment Sun spun around and smashed the staff it into the side of his head.

Sun once more leapt away from his opponents, rapidly twirling the staff in a circle before jamming it into the ground, sending out an omnidirectional wave of what seemed to be burning red energy which knocked a few more guys off their feet.

Roman stood a few yards away from Sun's skirmish and watched as the monkey kept jumping around and beating more of his associates unconscious, rolling his eyes the crime boss decided enough was enough once a White Fang member went sailing over his head. Raising his cane and switching it to "gun" mode, Roman lined up a shot at the faunus, who just barely deflected it with his staff.

Blake peered around the container and saw Sun struggle to block two more shots before he was prevented from doing more by four White Fang members who all threw a chain around each of his limbs, halting his movements.

Roman laughed and rested his cross-hair over Sun's head "Sad to say it, but our game is over monkey" the man said, but Blake leapt into action becoming blur as she raced towards Roman.

Just before he could pull the trigger that would result in the end of Sun's life he heard the rapidly approaching girl and turned to block Gambol Shroud's blades. "There you are!" Roman grinned.

Blake narrowed her eyes and used her weapon's katana and sheath to clash with his cane.

Roman pushed forwards with his weapon and started overpowering the girl, forced Blake to disengage and she put a few feet between them before entering a defensive stance.

"Why are you working with the White Fang?" Blake questioned while keeping her guard up, she could tell that this man was exceptionally skilled and dangerous, more than one would think of a common criminal.

"Wouldn't you like to know," Roman said with a grin, his face just _screamed_ smug as he brought up his cane to a defensive position.

The two combatants stayed still and focused on one another, neither willing to move. The sound of metal chains clanging to the ground seemed to be the signal for their fight. Roman and Blake leapt towards one another weapons already drawn and slicing through the air, meeting with a clash that sounded throughout the docks.

* * *

Drei looked at Sun and saw that the chains holding him seemed a bit too strong for the boy to break on his own, the Grimm looked around for something to throw which could assist him in escaping but before he could really start a large scythe dealt with the issue.

Sun saw Ruby holding the weapon that had freed him and the two quickly turned to face the White Fang members who had moments ago been surrounding him they had all been crushed into the ground by a pale girl with orange hair.

"Thanks for bailing me out there, but how did you know where to find me?" Sun asked Ruby. "Well... there was an explosion.." Ruby answered, but before the two could continue Penny looked across the docks and pointed. "Incoming hostiles." She warned them. Sun and Ruby looked to where she was pointing and saw a group of about twenty White Fangs members

"Well... there was an explosion.." Ruby answered, but before the two could continue Penny looked across the docks and pointed.

"Incoming hostiles." She warned them. Sun and Ruby looked to where she was pointing and saw a group of about twenty White Fangs members were approaching fast with weapons at the ready.

"That is a lot of guys." Sun commented as he and Ruby prepared to fight the group, while they were doing so Penny walked a few feet ahead of them.

"Penny?" Ruby asked the girl, and Penny looked back at her before letting out what was presumably a reassuring smile, it seemed a bit weird on her.

"Don't worry Ruby, I'm combat ready!" The two hunters saw her backpack open up and a plain looking sword with what appeared to be a typical ON symbol for electronics shoot out. It hovered for a moment before, with a

It hovered for a moment before, with a simple twitch of Penny's hand, it separated into fourteen blades that hovered slightly above her back like wings.

Sun and Ruby's eyes widened in surprise but even with this new development, the group of White Fang grunts approaching didn't slow down, if anything they merely prepared for a more difficult fight than they first expected.

With another twitch of her hand, Penny moved the blades into a wave-like formation before rushing towards the incoming hostile force. one White Fang member braced both hands on his Kalis before lunging at the girl, but before his blade could cut Penny's arm off he found the path suddenly blocked by a single blade.

The Kalis wielder backed off upon finding that the intercepting blade was seemingly immovable and started to defend himself against the wielder-less blade's attempts to strike him, barely bringing his guard up before it could graze his neck.

"How is she doing that?" The man heard the girl in red say as he briefly looked towards his fellow White Fang, finding all of them were in a similar situation to his own but not all were having the same luck against this weapon that he was.

One by one his comrades inevitably fell but from what he could observe in the brief instances between defending himself they were still alive.

"Priority shifted." Penny said once she observed the one holding the Kalis was the only White Fang member left, Penny was about to redirect all of her blades to him at once but before she could do so the three Bullheads which had dropped these men off finally made their presence known.

The pilots seemed to be synchronized as a small circular area in the front of the Bullheads slid open with a large rotary machine gun extending before spinning itself to life, Sun's normally tan skin turned an almost ghostly white upon seeing the guns train on them.

"Incoming!" He yelled before scrambling behind a sturdy looking crate nearby. however Ruby didn't and instead rushed towards Penny as the other hunter wasn't moving. She used her semblance to run towards her in a burst of petals, intending to get her fellow hunter out of the line of fire.

When Ruby was mid way to her ally she stopped when she saw that instead of allowing her weapons to continue on their path and disable her enemy Penny instead rapidly summoned her blades back to her person. a shield quickly being formed and held in front of her body.

"Whoa." Ruby managed to get out before the Bullheads then started firing, and to her amazement, Penny's shield remained firm against the hail of bullets assaulting it. Penny withstood the attack for several seconds, long enough for each of the barrels on the aircraft to overheat from the continuous burst and requiring the pilots to cease fire for a moment to allow the turrets a chance to cool off.

In this moment Penny once again changed the form of her weapon. while still in a circular formation the swords folded in half before the blades were aimed at the three aircraft. Sun, Ruby, the Kalis wielding White Fang member, and even the pilots all looked on in confusion as Penny seemed to just be pointing at the Bullheads with her swords.

Suddenly, on the end of each blade, a mass of green energy formed. " **Dodge!** " one particularly vocal pilot yelled out as the energy reached its full potential startlingly fast. Each of the pilots swerved their choppers in different directions to try and preemptively evade the incoming assault, and Penny finally released massive wave of green energy _just_ as they started to turn form the combined swords.

Ruby and Sun's mouths dropped open slightly in shock as the area seemed to gain a green glow and witnessed three Bullheads get _sliced in half_ , the aft section almost instantly getting separated from the fore section which had the pilots desperately scrambling out of their now falling vehicles.

Just before the aircraft impacted on the ground the pilots leapt out to safety, trying to get as far away from the now burning hazards before something bad happened, but the vehicles exploded the instant after they started and the shockwave flung them forwards, hitting their heads on the concrete.

Penny watched as the newly burning aircraft settled and their former pilots passed out from both the pain of their sudden landing and the force of the explosion that had washed over them. She then turned her gaze to the only remaining combatant.

"Great..." The man said to himself in a sarcastic tone as Penny stared at him, he looked over his defeated friends and the newly downed aircraft before his eyes fell on his Kalis. The White Fang member switched how he held the weapon, now wielding it in a reverse grip.

Penny changed her blades back into their normal sword form in response but was surprised as instead of futilely attacking her the man instead cracked the hilt against his head. Ruby was a few feet away behind a crate and even from there she cringed at the sound of metal smashing into bone as he knocking himself out instead of continuing to fight.

It was quiet as after the man slumped to the floor for a moment, Ruby and Sun finally removed themselves from their cover, slowly walking towards Penny after re-finding the ability to close their mouths.

Sun stared at her wide eyed "...that was incredible."

Ruby rapidly nodded in agreement and almost launched into yet another breathless and animated retelling of Penny's actions, but she was interrupted by Sun speaking.

"Anyways, while I appreciate the assist I gotta wonder.. what exactly are you guys doing here? You said you heard the explosion but... why were you here in the first place?" Ruby seemed to jolt as she remembered.

"We have been looking for Blake all day." Ruby said as she looked guilty for letting that slip her mind but in her own defense the spectacle of Penny taking down _everyone_ had been enough of a spectacle to distract her.

"I see."

The three heard the sounds of conflict a little ways away and started to run towards it, Blake and Roman's fight had taken them further than one would think.

When Roman and Blake came into view the three prepared to step in and help their friend and fellow hunter but they were held up by the sound of what _had_ to be five more Bullheads incoming.

Sun clenched his fist in annoyance at the sound, _"How many of these things will have to be destroyed by tomorrow_ _morning?"_

* * *

 **A/N So I am cutting this off here, next chapter should be out faaar sooner than this and the last.**

 **Sorry for the wait. Life stuff happens** **¯\\_(ツ)_/¯**


	17. Found

_Before we get into this I just would like to apologize in advance for the Bullhead fight, for some reason it doesn't sit well with me._

 _On a more positive note; Yay! 5000-ish words for one chapter, my previous "best" was 3500-ish, also have over 300 follows and over 250 favorites, along with 112-ish reviews, thanks to all the guys and gals that stopped to look at my kinda out there story._

* * *

 **Docks: Ruby, Penny, and Sun**

"You've gotta be kidding me, how many of these things do they have!" Sun yelled in frustration, there had to be at _least_ five more Bullheads incoming.

The three hunters in training readied themselves for yet another fight, and when the source of the sound appeared Sun found himself _really_ wishing it was just more of the same fodder that had been destroyed so easily.

Ruby looked on with her mouth agape in surprise as rather than a group, a _single_ vehicle came into view, "I didn't think they made helicopters that big." She said softly.

Most Combat Oriented Bullheads could hold around ten passengers at maximum and were equipped with one small caliber gun turret for _defensive_ purposes, they weren't made to be **_flying_ _tanks_** , but that memo was apparently missed by whoever built _this_ thing.

Not only was it about five times the size of its normal counterparts, but it had two extra rotors on each side and three turrets instead of one, in addition to them being _much_ larger in size. The armor seemed thicker too and looked to be made of something different from the typical material, it was a fair bit shinier than the normal stuff.

Ruby acted with haste before this new Bullhead could begin aiming at the three, the young huntress trained her scythe's sniper rifle on the large target and shot off a few rounds, but to her dismay, the thick armor caused the damage inflicted to be negligible.

Her sniper bullets seemed to bounce off harmlessly.

Sun opted to find the best possible cover in a nearby collection of cargo containers, he didn't have a long range option available to himself and just _knew_ they were going to get shot at again.

Ruby moved behind Penny as she once again started to charge the blast which had torn straight through the three other Bullheads in one burst, their surroundings gained a green glow as the attack reached full power and was about to be released.

As the blast fired Ruby was knocked back, the wave of green energy careening towards the Bullhead and hitting its target dead on; Penny had used its full charge which had more than enough power to slice through at _least_ three of its smaller counterparts.

Some of the side armor was dented in, with the aircraft shifting a few feet to the right.

Penny's, along with Ruby's and Sun's, eyes widened in disbelief upon seeing just how little damage was inflicted.

"Uh-oh" Sun felt a bit colder for some reason.

Penny grabbed Ruby's arm and raced for cover as the turrets were trained on the hunters, visibly preparing to fire.

Using her shield Penny managed to block some shots but it obviously wouldn't last very long. Ruby grabbed onto her, using her semblance to try and avoid the incoming munitions before taking cover with Sun in the heavily stocked loading bay, near a crane used to move cargo onto large ships.

The Schnee Corporation had upgraded not only its security forces in response to the frequent terrorist attacks but also the durability of its containers.

Never had a group of hunters been more thankful for business decision than when a hail of bullets presented with a very durable barrier.

The sheer size of the Bullhead proved to be an issue with its design in this environment, it had very little room to maneuver due to the dense cluster of equipment and the crane wasn't helping.

"How long do you think until this thing finds out a better place to shoot us from?!" Sun yelled to Ruby.

"Hopefully never!" The girl responded, but as she said this the group could hear the bullet impacts steadily getting closer.

The layers of cover were being destroyed, and sooner than they would like they would be exposed to high caliber rounds.

Their aura, even at its best, would be shredded almost instantly from the sheer onslaught, despite how fast Ruby was she doubted her Semblance could go faster than _these_ speeding bullets, or get outside the spread in time.

There was nowhere to go really, the bullet storm they had been introduced to was wide enough that it would easily be moved to hit the three of them if they ran, and Sun had found what seemed to be the most protected spot available to them.

Ruby and Sun watched as Penny moved her swords to be above the containers, they were charged with a green light once again illuminating the area before firing it, but their hope that this was the end of their assailant were dashed, once Penny's blast ended the sounds of bullets impacting on the containers continued unabated.

"Crap," Sun whispered to himself.

* * *

 **Docks: Drei**

Drei had kept to the shadows as the hunters were fighting against whoever, he honestly didn't know.

While he might be relatively new to the modern world he knew from his first true experience with it after Port found him that any Grimm being remotely "friendly" or holding sentience even near that of humans and faunus was still unheard of.

The entire classroom that had been befuddled by his actions spoke volumes, especially when Yang was confused as all hell when he pushed Ruby to her.

He didn't want to think about what would happen if less than stellar examples of morality found out about him...

The Grimm kept a close eye on Blake as she was having her skirmish with Roman, and when Sun was fighting off the White Fang.

When Sun was pinned in place Drei was prepared to assist Blake's ally, but he was pleasantly surprised that Ruby and the girl from earlier had appeared to help him, and then took down not only an entire squad of White Fang terrorists, but the orange haired girl sliced three Bullheads in half with a wave of energy, _"That girl is alarmingly powerful."_

Drei settled into a more relaxed sitting position after Ruby and the girl appeared.

Across the way, Blake was holding her own against the criminal and while he could tell that even with training that she had gone through her defeat was inevitable. Drei believed that the other three would get to her before that happened.

Perking his ears to the sky Drei heard the sounds of another Bullhead incoming, _"This one sounds a bit heavier than the others."_

Drei bared his fangs in a sort of grimace when the vehicle came into view, whoever made the Bullhead had designed it as a heavy assault helicopter, even _he_ could tell the others were basically just lightly armed and armored transports.

It was a bit larger than the others and Drei saw it was far more durable as well. Penny's energy blast did little actual damage to it and despite her efforts, she and the others were pinned in place, with even Ruby unable to make a break for it without risking being turned into humanoid cheese.

Drei got up before flexing his legs in preparation, the orange haired girl's blast got smaller and smaller with every consecutive shot, and at the current rate, he wasn't too sure she could take down the Bullhead before running out of juice.

Crouching low to the ground Drei searched for the least armored part of the aircraft, he found that one of the rotors keeping the vehicle aloft had actually been affected by the orange haired girl in her attempt to take it down, weakening it to a degree and compromising the armor.

As the orange haired girl slumped against the container, recovering from her latest shot, the ancient Grimm crouched down. time seemed to slow to a crawl for Drei as he readied himself.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl for Drei as he focused.

* * *

 **Docks: Blake and Roman**

Roman blocked the horizontal slash and easily parried the jab that Blake sent his way before attempting an overhead swing only to be blocked by Blake's Katana and sheath combo, but the girl was surprised to find her weapon being pushed down; Roman was a good deal stronger than his build would suggest.

"Are you sure straight up close combat is your thing?" Roman said with a smirk before he backed up and swung his cane vertically.

Blake side-stepped it and almost nicked Roman with her Katana but he tilted his head just enough to avoid.

Gripping his cane tightly, Roman smashed it into her side.

Blake's aura reduced the damage that would've inflicted while the two kept up their dance, but Roman managed to easily defend himself against her attempts to strike him.

As he began pushing her back Blake had to admire his weapon, it didn't look like much at first glance but it was proving to be an alarmingly potent blunt weapon.

Moving away as she was struck once more Blake let out a heavy breath, "Getting tired already?" He taunted with a smug grin.

Blake didn't grace him with a response as they began their deadly dance once again, she was determined to wipe that smug look off his face.

* * *

 **Drei VS Super Bullhead**

Racing fast enough that he seemed to become a black blur Drei bolted towards the containers, rapidly closing the distance he could see the mini-gun fire was widespread enough that if one of the three hunters tried to make a break for it than the Bullhead would only need to shift a small amount to put them in the line of fire.

Not only that, but it was _such_ a high rate of fire that Ruby, even using her semblance, would have difficulty dodging _every_ bullet. All it would take is _one_ stray bullet clipping her aura and causing her to stumble and it would be over.

Ruby started channeling all of the aura she could spare to her semblance as the sound of their opponent's assault got closer.

She wasn't confident that she could entirely outmaneuver it, but if the vehicle was given two different targets...

Before she could even do try the bullets stopped, "New contact!" Penny shouted as she pointed for good measure, even though the constant noise from the bullet impacts had been halted the ringing in the three hunter's ears still made hearing difficult.

Ruby and Sun heard her well enough and looked at where she was pointing.

Drei was on the crate behind theirs, his eyes watching for any new movement from the Bullhead as his body tensed, ready to move at moments notice.

Ruby saw him spare a glance down at them before once again training his vision on the Bullhead as his front claws seemed to get sharper in preparation.

The vehicle's mini-guns quickly trained themselves on the new target; the barrels spun up, noisily heralding the resume of the bullet-storm, and as they fired Drei _moved_.

Ruby was the only one capable of seeing his movements, and she realized he was going faster than she could.

Quickly maneuvering himself outside the gun's limited radius Drei forced the vehicle to turn itself away from the hunters, still managing to dodge the munitions even after the other three turrets were trained on him.

After getting the death machine to turn away from his allies Drei started zig-zaging towards it, avoiding its mini-gun fire and rapidly closing the distance between the two before leaping at the Bullhead.

The pilot re-aimed the turrets in record time and managed to train them on Drei, the Beowolf grimaced as he felt the bullets hit him, they were significantly larger than the ones Weiss had used during their first encounter and actually _hurt_.

Thankfully, Drei only needed to endure for the briefest of moments as he sank his claws into the Bullhead, hanging from the nose. Not willing to let this opportunity go to waste Drei started to maul the mini-guns, tearing them from their placement and throwing the remains away from the vehicle.

The Bullhead started to spin to the right while in place, the pilot desperately trying to throw Drei off of before he could do anymore damage. The Grimm wasn't able to hang on for long and was quickly thrown off his target, but Drei was ready.

Mid-fall he shifted his tail into something similar to the blade-whip he occasionally used to "motivate" those he would train with, however this one had small "blades" on its entirety, not unlike a cactus.

Maneuvering his tail around one of the rotors the Beowolf wrapped the newly created weapon around one of the beams connecting the blades to the aircraft itself, securing himself to it before he was out of reach.

The sound of metal being chewed up by was heard as the rotor Drei had secured himself to was torn off the Bullhead, the constant turning pushed the blades through the metal.

Drei spun his body so that his feet were to the ground and unwrapped his tail from the now falling rotor as he hit the ground.

Briefly glancing at his appendage Drei looked for any damage, finding much to his relief that his tail was unharmed. The Bullhead on the other hand was now unstable, and before the pilot could even react Drei was on the aircraft again, savagely tearing its armor to shreds as the aircraft spun around as the pilot was unable to regain control.

The Bullhead, on the other hand, was now unstable and before the pilot could even react Drei was on the aircraft again, savagely tearing its armor to shreds as the aircraft spun around as the pilot was unable to regain control.

Maneuvering himself to the cockpit door Drei's assault was halted when he saw what appeared to be a green glow on the armor in front of him, looking behind himself towards the source he saw that Penny was preparing to fire another energy blast.

 _"Targets locked."_ Penny thought to herself.

The Beowolf had compromised the integrity of the Bullhead's armor to the point that she had no doubt on her ability to take it out, and with the Grimm preoccupied she had a clean shot on _two_ targets.

Ruby saw that Drei was in the direct line of fire and felt a jolt go through her body, eyes widening as she realized why _"I never told Penny about him!"_

She moved forward, attempting to stop the orange haired girl, but it was too late _._

The emerald blast was released.

The Beowolf didn't notice this as he punctured the outer edges of its armor before _pulling_ , the metal screeching as it was ripped apart and thrown away in under a second.

The vulpine pilot could only look on in horror as the reinforced door, the only thing separating him from the monster, was torn to shred.

Burning red orbs appeared and before him, was a creature of death, and behind it was an almost _blindingly_ green light that was _rapidly_ approaching.

The reflection snapped Drei out of his savagery just as he ripped into the safety straps on the pilot.

He leaped from the aircraft _seconds_ before it met its doom, barely noticing the screaming pilot who slammed into the ground, having jumped out of the plane the moment before green swallowed it whole.

Penny could tell the faunus was still breathing.

The orange haired girl grit her teeth as engaged the Grimm before her, every single blade she had was going into fighting the creature, slashing and swiping at it.

She could tell it wasn't like other Grimm.

The ones that were usually encountered by hunters had to rely on sheer numbers to be a real threat and didn't have much skill at self-preservation.

Her current opponent, on the other hand, was dancing around her attacks so easily it wasn't even funny _"It must be old."_ She thought to herself as she grabbed the handles of two longer blades and moving in closer.

Moving forwards Penny tried to slash the monster's midsection with the sword in her right hand, but Drei simply blocked it with one of his claws before cracking it in his grip.

Penny moved back and sent a barrage of smaller blades Drei shifted his tail into a bladed whip-like form, spinning it around and knocking all her blades to the ground.

Penny let out a heavy breath before bringing her blades back up, trying to take down that Bullhead had been taxing, _forcing_ herself to fully charge that last blast hadn't helped things.

So far there wasn't a single scratch on Drei, who just kept dodging Penny's attacks or damaging her weapons, using his superior speed to dodge almost every attack and force his opponent to use more energy than they would think on misses than hits.

Drei dodged another blade before smacking it down, he had found that re-adjusting her weapons seemed to take a small amount of effort for Penny, and every bit counted. _"I wonder if Ruby recorded the next episode of that show..."_

* * *

The first thing Ruby and Sun saw after getting out of their cover was Drei defending himself against Penny's assault, Sun had a concerned look on his face.

"Should... we help him?" Ruby blinked at that question before observing the way Drei was acting during the dance, "He'll be fine, he did that same thing against Weiss when we first met him."

 _"She still hasn't gotten over that either..._ " Weiss had started to occasionally challenge the Grimm to a rematch, always with the same result as the first time.

* * *

The orange haired huntress hadn't let up in her efforts to take out the Grimm, Drei looked on in interest as she linked all of her swords together and sent it careening towards the Beowolf who almost casually sidestepped it.

Penny's weapon continued on and impaled in the ground, Drei shoved them in a bit further for good measure.

The girl's movements had gotten a fair bit slower since the start of their tussle, _"Damaging and then taking down that helicopter must of required a good amount of energy."_ He saw his opponent slump a bit before trying to heave the combined blade from the rock, and that was the only opportunity Drei needed.

Like a flash of lightning Drei appeared behind Penny, before she had a chance to react he slammed her to the ground with his paw, knocking the wind out of her.

His opponent was struggling against him, but Drei could see she was nearing her limit.

 _"Not enough energy..."_ Penny could feel herself losing steam but refused to give in, using all of her deceptive might she tried to force the Grimm back, but the monster proved stronger.

Drei increased his own effort, keeping the girl pinned in place and waited for her to calm down.

Drei over at the other two hunters, who were moving to assist Blake against her opponent. He hadn't noticed just how far the groups had gotten from each other in all the commotion.

* * *

Disengaging from their dance once more Blake took a moment to recover.

It had become incredibly obvious during their fight that Roman was, much to her chagrin, the better fighter, but... _"If you can't outfight an opponent, outsmart them."_

Roman let out a sigh as their fight was restarted, _"She can't beat me, so why is she still trying?"_ While the cat faunus was indeed skilled she just wasn't up to the task of fighting him.

Blake was once more hit by Torchwick's cane, but to his surprise instead of simply tanking the hit or dodging, she exploded into smoke.

Not willing to let his opponent take a free shot Torchwick jumped back, the cloud of smoke expanded slightly before moving away, revealing his opponent. Roman shook his head, "Definitely a rookie, ya didn't even _try_ to take advantage of me being unable to see you."

Letting out a heavy breath, Blake raced towards her opponent in a straight line. Roman rolled his eyes at the... 'tactic' she had decided on using, and as Blake swung her twin blades at him she honestly wasn't _too_ surprised to see her enemy parry them.

But this time, before she could react properly, he put his cane right on her chest and fired.

Blake's eyes widened as she felt the shock of a bullet tear through her body, she let out a quiet gasp that would _never_ be heard as a gunshot rang throughout the area.

Taking a shuddering breath Blake fell to her knees, she feebly grabbed Roman's coat but he kicked her arms away.

The feline faunus fell to the ground with a _sickeningly_ wet thump.

"BLAKE!" Sun and Ruby screamed out in anguish, Roman looked towards the hunters and found, much to his surprise, that a few yards behind them was a Grimm pinning down the orange haired girl, next to the downed Super Bullhead with the pilot knocked out next to it.

Roman got over his surprise, eyes rolling as the two that had gotten his attention raced towards him, _"This is why you don't let kids play hunter."_ Aiming his cane at the two he let off a few rounds, but before they could reach a blur of black appeared in front of the hunters, facing them as the rounds impacted a body.

"wha-" Roman was unable to finish his word as a kick connected with his head, launching him a ways away.

"Drei?" Ruby asked worried, but her fears that he was injured were dashed when he simply turned his gaze the two hunters and gestured his head behind himself, a jolt went through Ruby's body as she saw what he was trying to get them to look at.

Penny had been running after her former captor but stopped to re-think his status as an enemy upon seeing the Grimm put itself in harm's way to block the shots meant for Ruby and Sun.

 _"A Grimm that protects something aside from another Grimm? Unheard of."_ Penny thought to herself.

Ruby and Sun moved to engage Roman while Drei stayed behind, the Grimm readied to defend himself as Penny slowly walked forwards.

Staring at one another for a few moments, Penny was the first one to communicate, "Not an enemy." Drei nodded his head at that assessment, "You can understand me?!" Drei's body seemed to droop at that, _"Here we go again..."_

* * *

After he came to a stop on the concrete Roman looked towards his assailant, and upon seeing who it was he was in disbelief.

"You have got to be kidding me." He grumbled as saw he thought he had _just_ killed like five seconds ago smirking at him. Roman looked towards the 'body' he had shot and saw that it was fading away. _"An illusion? Some sort of clone?"_

"When did you learn to do that?"

Blake's smirk got a bit bigger.

While training with Drei she began working on her clones, making them stick around after taking damage.

It only worked for two seconds before it started fading away, but it evidently worked _wonders_ during combat, where every moment could be the difference between life and death.

Hearing Ruby and Sun's screams had been surprising, she didn't really expect Ruby to even _be_ in Vale for one thing.

"A week ago." Blake didn't want to tell him that it was taxing to pull off, keeping the look of confidence as she saw a Drei gesture behind himself.

Roman just laughed, "Well... that is impressive." Hearing rapidly incoming footsteps Roman ducked underneath a slash from Ruby's scythe and caught one of Sun's sticks, which then exploded in his hand.

Torchwick's aura allowed him to endure the blow with only a light burn on his hand, letting out a curse from the pain before driving his foot into Sun's stomach and punching Ruby in the diaphragm, dodging a sword strike from Blake before moving to put some distance between himself and his opponents.

A few yards from the four was Drei and Penny, the two were moving to join. Roman looked over his opponents, the defeated White Fang members, and most importantly the downed Bullheads and destroyed Super Bullhead.

 _"Five on One... well,_ _I didn't make it this far in life not knowing when to throw in the towel."_ Roman reached into and pulled out a small object from his coat, tossing it in the middle of Ruby, Sun, and Blake, and bolting towards the edge of the docks.

"Grenade!" Blake shouted in warning to her teammates, but it was too late, parts of the container had popped open mid flight and as soon as it hit the ground it rushed out, releasing a potent cloud of tear gas with a hiss.

The two faunus went down almost immediately, their heightened senses unfortunately made them a good deal more sensitive to things like this than Ruby was but she fell only seconds after.

Drei looked at the cloud in confusion for a moment before moving into it, grabbing onto the three downed hunters and moving them out of the cloud.

He saw the three were coughing with tears streaming from their eye. Drei let out a sneeze and shook his head in confusion before letting out yet another sneeze, a fit of them happening right afterwards. _"What is this stuff?"_

Roman ran like a bat out of hell, firing off a few explosive shots towards the three incapacitated hunters, Drei put himself in front of the hunters, the rounds impacting on his fur without any true damage done to his body.

Penny tried to send her swords out to trip Roman up, but her limit had finally been reached and she collapsed to her knees.

Attempting to hit Drei time and again after already having fired multiple energy blasts had her running on fumes, and to her frustration just _moving_ those swords was too much.

As he finally reached the edge of the docks Roman looked over and saw the Jet Ski was still in place, turning back to his enemies. _"Kids these days are just too weird."_

Torchwick saw the strange Grimm looking right at him, hovering over the two faunus brats and scythe wielder without any indication that it wanted a meal, instead, it was almost like the beast was protecting them.

Jumping down onto his alternate escape route Roman took off into the sea, hoping that this operation wasn't _too_ important. _"That Grimm wasn't anywhere_ near _normal though, s_ _he'll want to know about him."_

* * *

 **Docks, Later on**

Once the sounds of sirens were heard Drei had bolted to a shadowy location with a bit of a view, he heard the questioning that occurred, _"Not mentioning me was probably for the best",_ and the... unique... apology that Weiss gave, along with the reconciliation that resulted.

After everything was said and done Drei stretched before curling up and started to doze off, returning to Beacon could be done later, when things aren't so hectic.

 _"I miss the forest."_ Drei thought to himself, the lack of action had at the very least been predictable, he then heard Team RWBY walking up on him.

"Drei... we kinda sorta need to get back to Beacon," Yang told the beast, who proceeded to groan in protest, but got up and jumped onto the rooftops as they headed back to Beacon.

 _"My bed there_ is _more comfortable than concrete..."_

* * *

 **Unknown location; the next morning**

Roman took a few breaths to calm himself before entering a discreet warehouse, walking inside he placed a case at a table before drumming his fingers on the table.

"You failed to do your job yet have such impatience? I have to wonder what happened out there." Roman nearly jumped at the voice, turning to it he saw three other people in the warehouse, a woman with yellow eyes and long, flowing hair was the only identifiable one, the other two cloaked in shadow.

"Whoa!" Shaking off his surprise Roman grinned, "Wasn't expecting you guys so soon."

The woman arched an eyebrow, he seemed unusually chipper... "We were expecting a bit more from you."

"I didn't come out entirely empty handed," Roman claimed, opening the reinforced case he pulled out a container of dust, but that wasn't what he was so pleased about.

Pulling a memory stick from the case he placed in in a scroll, it started playing the _now missing_ security footage from the docks.

"Security footage?" The woman questioned.

"Just watch, you'll be surprised," Roman assured her, having watched it himself earlier had been a real shock, if the orange haired girl had attacked him with that blast he doubted his aura would protect against it, and that Grimm...

Tearing apart a military grade assault helicopter with claws like its tissue paper is never a normal thing to see.

The woman looked at the recording with only a vague interest, so far nothing to note had occurred _"He is stalling..."_ , but when it got to the point where a Beowolf was seen she was visibly interested, and by the time the recording had shown it almost single-handedly took down their _incredibly_ difficult to acquire and _very_ expensive Bullhead before defending the downed hunters her eyebrows were raised.

"Interesting..." The woman looked at Torchwick with a rather unsettling smile, "I'll be taking that recording, my... _employer_... needs to know about this little development."

Roman all but threw the recording at her after hearing the word "employer", he did _not_ want to go against whoever ran things for these three.

"What about me?" Roman inquired, thankfully keeping the nervousness out of his voice, dealing with this group was always... worrying, to say the least.

A small, devious smile graced the woman's face as she looked at him, "We have _big_ plans for you, Roman."

* * *

 **A/N And that is the end of "Volume One"... I am never going to go into detail for vehicle fights again.**

 **I don't think I ever clarified this before, but Drei doesn't think in English, its just a translation thing.**

 **Did anyone actually think I would kill Blake? Just curious.**

 **I gave Roman that missing security footage because wow would that blast the can of worms wide open on Drei's existence, and I have to imagine Roman could pull something like stealing and then erasing security footage off.**

 **Just for future reference, if a chapter is taking ages to come out it is probably because I am writing a fight scene of varying lengths.**


	18. Interlude 3: The Next Day

**_Been a bit huh?_**

 **(Edited 1/2/2017 for Cinder/Emerald/Mercury Storyline reasons, I might've forgotten that she was actually angry at them for doing a thing that they did...)**

 **(Edited 4/28/2017 because for some reason a bunch of sentences were copied, and a few adjustments to a scene)**

* * *

The trip back to the hunter school was, thankfully, uneventful; Drei managed to remain out of the public's eye by sticking to the rooftops while the reunited team RWBY had gone the normal route, Penny had gone her own way whereas Sun was nowhere to be seen.

Once he finally got onto his bed Drei felt a sort of weight on his spine fade, that had been his first actual fight in dust knows how long and to actually feel _pain_ in a fight, no matter how limited and manageable - was something he hadn't experienced in _years_.

He had been mostly asleep when the door opened, his closed eyes narrowed in annoyance when the four members of JNPR discovered the formerly missing Grimm in their room.

"Where were you?" Nora asked in an alarmed voice, seemingly teleporting from the door where the rest of JNPR stood to the Grimm's "futon", Drei let out a huff and moved his body away from her.

"Aww, don't be like that Drei." The Grimm actually let out a _growl_ , his tail abruptly slamming into the ground next to her - an embarrassingly squeak leaving the girl in the process - and he roughly carved a single word into the hard floor.

" **Tomorrow** "

Nora turned back to him after reading the word, a victorious smile on her face. "I'll hold ya to that!" She said in a sing-song voice, grinning once she heard him let out a huff of defeat.

 _"I'm really out of shape..."_ Barely more than two minutes of actual effort had _exhausted_ him, six hundred years without really moving - only sleeping really - was making its effects known.

It wasn't long before JNPR started getting ready for bed - The four of them had apparently been waiting for some sort of news about RWBY's whereabouts - Drei heard them finally settle in and let out an exhausted breath as he too drifted to sleep.

* * *

 **EKM**

* * *

It was the dead of night and the members of team JNPR were sound asleep,

 _ **"NOOOOOOO!"**_

Jaune, Pyrrha, and Ren were violently awoken by Nora's scream. Ren placed a hand over his heart, taking in deep breaths to steady himself while Pyrrha instinctively reached for a weapon she didn't have, Jaune accidentally jerked out of his bed, hitting the ground with a dull thud.

"Ow..."

"Whosdyng?" Pyrrha slurred out, slowly blinking as she continued to wake up.

"What happened?" Ren asked in a concerned tone, still a bit unsteady from his abrupt awakening. _"Another nightmare?"_

Nora frowned, "The Grimm Pelts didn't get sold." Ren's head slowly dropped once he heard that.

"Oh." He said in a flat voice. Jaune placed a hand on his mattress, beginning to pull himself back onto the bed.

Pyrrha's eyes moved to her bedside alarm clock as she processed the reason they were woken up - it read 5:53 - and slowly rose from her bed, moving to the bathroom without speaking a word.

As the shower started running Jaune finally hoisted himself back onto the mattress, Ren simply fell back and tried to get some extra sleep in before he actually had to get ready for school.

"Where's Drei?" Nora suddenly asked. Jaune and Ren turned to see their Grimm companion's bed empty.

"Maybe he got up earlier." Jaune mumbled, pulling his blankets over his head in an attempt to block out the sun's _infuriating rays._

The three sat in silence until the bathroom door opened, Pyrrha walked out in her armor, looking far more awake than she had been a few minutes ago; the crimson-haired girl glanced around at the resting inhabitants of the room.

"It's almost six, we might as well get ready for class." The resounding Why from Jaune, No from Nora, and mumble from Ren wasn't quite what she expected to hear from the three...

Suddenly Nora jumped from her bed, "We need to find Drei! He promised to explain where he was!" The hyperactive girl grabbed Ren and pulled him from his bed while Jaune found his covers were suddenly missing.

"No time to rest!" Ren's shoulders sagged as it dawned on him that the last bit of sleep wasn't going to happen.

"Could I at least get changed first?" Nora examined Jaune's current outfit, he was still dressed in his only _slightly_ embarrassing one piece pajamas, plus the three of them hadn't showered yet...

Pyrrha walked outside the room as the three got ready, she heard Nora shouting to the boys from the bathroom as the water started running. "No peaking when I get out!"

 _"They should_ really _keep a change of clothes in the bathroom."_ Thankfully it wasn't long till her teammates exited the room one by one, ready for the day's events.

"Operation: Locate GrimmyBear begin!" Nora exclaimed with a smile, but despite the energy she had her teammates moved at an annoyingly slow pace through the halls.

"Where do you think we should start?" Jaune asked the other members of JNPR, Ren looked out of a window in thought.

"The Garden, or the dueling room."

"He does seem to mostly spend his time between the two..." Pyrrha commented, she hadn't seen Drei anywhere else except for the cafeteria - and he was only _there_ when everyone was eating - but other than that he just went to either the garden or the dueling room during school hours.

"The dueling room is closer." Ren pointed out. "Guess we search there first." Jaune said.

"Guess we search there first." Jaune said.

Pyrrha suddenly stopped moving, "Where's Nora?"

Jaune and Ren both halted and looked around, the raven-haired male released a frustrated sigh once he saw she was nowhere to be found, "Not again..."

* * *

 **EKM**

* * *

While everyone else was wasting time deciding where to look for their Grimm friend Nora decided to get a move on, racing throughout the school at breakneck speeds and keeping an eye out for any sign of Drei. _"I wonder when they'll notice?"_ Nora briefly thought to herself, but as she passed the training room she suddenly ground to a stop.

Pressing herself next to the window Nora saw the object of her team's search, standing on all fours in the middle of a basketball court sized square arena, there were a few humanoid training drones going after him. Despite the best efforts of the robots to attack him, Drei was almost always able to outmaneuver them.

One of the drones got a little too close for comfort, its fist grazing Drei's side.

His fangs dug into the robot's shoulder, the alloy giving a _horrible_ crunch as Drei turned it into scrap in seconds.

Nora's eyes widened at the savagery Drei displayed, those things weren't the most _durable_ of foes, but still. Nora examined the scoreboard and saw that he had been at this for only 2 minutes, looking back in the room she saw there was only one other destroyed robot.

The Beowolf continued doing whatever he was doing for another minute before hitting the off button on a nearby console, the timer stopping with 3 minutes elapsed. The huntress saw him let out his tongue, panting heavily and recovering from his exertions.

"Hey, Drei?" The Grimm almost jumped at Nora's voice, turning to her with inquisitive eyes and tilting his head to the side, "Whatcha doin?" Drei picked up the chassis of one of the destroyed robots and carved **"Stamina Training"** into it.

"Oh..." Drei blinked and found Nora _right_ in front of him, "Soooo, now that you're done with that can would you explain where you were yesterday?" There was a loud clanking sound as the robot hit the ground, the Grimm let out an exasperated huff.

 _"Nora's not gonna let this go, is she?"_ Drei started carving into the ground, he didn't have the patience to figure out how to carve his sentence into the robots.

 **"Went with RWBY after someone, found them at the docks and fought off some White Fang members, ask them for more information."**

Nora pouted at the Grimm once she read that, "Are ya sure ya can't tell me?"

 **"Not my place to tell."**

Nora frowned before reluctantly nodding, "I guess I'll just have to ask them then!" She said with a grin.

"Drei? Nora?" Ren's voice reached the ears of the two.

"We're in the robot room!" She shouted out, the rest of JNPR appearing in the room shortly thereafter. Jaune, Ren, and Pyrrha quickly read what Drei had carved out already.

"Might as well wait for them to get up then." Jaune lamented to his team.

"But I want to know what happened now!" Nora said as she pouted.

Pyrrha looked at the gym's clock, "Classes start in an hour, so they'll probably be up in 30 minutes. We'll be able to talk about it during lunch."

* * *

 **EKM**

* * *

Weiss glared at her alarm clock, arms crossed, nostrils flaring once it hit 6:40. Normally everyone was up by now, occasionally Yang would sleep in but no longer than 30 minutes before class started.

Her and Yang's search yesterday had been a bit exhausting, walking for hours on end looking for clues runaway teammate's whereabouts wasn't exactly the easiest thing in the world, but the Heiress had made sure to go to bed a bit early to compensate.

Yang didn't, so there they were, three out of four still asleep and not even in the correct clothing. _"Blake and Ruby get a pass, they actually had to fight people."_ Weiss thought to herself as the two of them laid as still as rocks, Weiss looked over and noticed Blake wasn't wearing her bow, cat ears on full display for the first time since their team had been made.

The Schnee Heiress was slightly ashamed of how she reacted to that news, but the shock of finding out Blake was a Faunus, combined with the fact that she had been a part of the White Fang, brought up some bad memories. _"Still... Blake didn't deserve that treatment..."_ She thought with a grimace, she had been kind of a bit-"mmmm, whatimisit?" Yang mumbled out.

"Six-Forty," Weiss said in a clipped tone.

"WHAT!" Yang shouted out, waking the other two sleeping individuals.

When the other two saw what time it was the room turned into a stampede of movement, they almost tore the room apart in their attempts to get ready.

Despite how much clean up they would need to do later Weiss still felt a sense of satisfaction, _"Maybe go to bed earlier next time."_

* * *

Classes thankfully started out fine for team RWBY, despite most of the team waking up twenty minutes ago, while on the JNPR side of things Nora kept an eye the other team, never letting them leave her sight for long, wanting to ask them the first chance she got. So far their classes had required too much of their attention and they only had minutes to get to their next class, but now they were in History Class.

 **History. Class**.

The thing Nora is _barely_ passing out of sheer boredom.

Learning about the past was something Nora had difficulty paying attention to or caring about her, allowing her to focus on her frustration with not knowing what happened yesterday enough that she might decide to do something drastic, _like kidnapping her friends_.

There were thankfully a fair amount of people actually paying attention, Oobleck had made a good point earlier that year, learning from the mistakes of the past would allow them to not make them in the present or future. "-Can anyone tell me where the Grimm came from?" The Professor's strange question got a general look of confusion among the students.

"Uhm.." Jaune began, Oobleck staring at him as he started to answer, "Nobody knows right?"

Oobleck was suddenly _inches_ away from Jaune, "Correct! While it is known that they have existed throughout history there are no known records of their origin or where they came from, only myths, legends, and theories." Suddenly the history teacher was back at his desk as if he hadn't left in the first place. "One of the terrifying things about Grimm is that most things about them are almost entirely unknown!"

"We do know thanks to the wolf Grimm-"

"His name is Drei." Yang interrupted. Oobleck looked at her in astonishment,

Oobleck looked at her in astonishment, _"They named it... him?"_

"Very well, due to information from Drei we know that the Grimm have supposedly been around for 15 thousand years, of course, this might be incorrect if his memory of his years isn't perfect. However, if he is correct then they predate most known civilizations."

Ruby raised her hand. "Yes Ms. Rose?" Oobleck questioned her.

"Aren't there some stories about where the Grimm come from?"

"I'm glad you asked! There are only a few that I know of but an interesting one is a myth describing two equal yet opposing entities of a divine nature, in the legend the two were responsible for-"

*Briiiiiing*

"-And there's the bell! We'll continue that story tomorrow first thing two days from now! Now, remember the assignment, a five hundred word essay detailing the beginnings of the four kingdoms in your own words will be due when you get back." Oobleck finished.

"I really need to ask Drei how he knows what 15 thousand years are... do Grimm know how to tell time?" Oobleck questioned as he put away his papers.

* * *

Blake had her palm holding up her head as she ate her food, eyes almost shut from exhaustion. Ruby and Yang were in a similar condition while Weiss seemed just fine. The members of RWBY jumped as a food tray slammed down next to them and Nora sat down.

"So..." She began, "What were you guys doin yesterday?"

"We went out shopping!"

"Dealing with personal things."

"Finding stray cats."

"Why do you want to know?"

Nora narrowed her eyes as Ruby, Weiss, Yang, and Blake gave four _very_ different responses, Blake's seemed the most, or least, suspicious. "Because Drei popped back up right before bedtime and earlier today said to ask you about it."

"Well, he said we should ask you if we wanted to know," Ren interjected as he sat next to Nora, Blake opened her mouth but closed it after looking around, there were a few people within earshot she didn't want to know about... things.

"You don't have to if you don't feel like it," Jaune said after he too sat down, directly across from Nora. Blake's uncomfortable expression wasn't exactly subtle.

"It's not a problem, but I'd feel more comfortable saying what happened away from... less accepting ears." She said quietly.

"What's going on?" Pyrrha said as she took a seat.

"I'll tell you guys where we were yesterday after lunch is over." Blake informed the newcomer.

"Oh, okay then."

"So... earlier today we found Drei training with the bots," Nora rapidly blurted out.

"Haven't seen him since," Ren added.

Just after he finished the Grimm dropped from the ceiling next to their table, once again his mouth opened to reveal _very_ sharp teeth as he yawned. "There he is!" Ruby exclaimed, and with a confused tilt of her head she looked up into the rafters.

"Were you sleeping up there?" The Beowolf nodded in answer, eyes drooping as he let out another yawn.

Yang was about to ask why he chose that spot of all places, he usually slept in the garden and combat testing room after all, when the Grimm slumped to the ground and curled up into a ball, "Guess he's still tuckered out from yesterday." The brawler commented.

"Now you guys are just tormenting me!" Nora said, slumping over in frustration.

Every single comment just made Nora want to know what happened yesterday more and more, and the rest of the lunch seemed to a game of dropping the tiniest of hints to her.

Ren considered the fact that Nora _hadn't_ flipped over their table once the group finished their lunch was nothing short of a miracle, but then again Drei's tail seemed longer than usual, and he seemed closer to the table than before...

"C'mon!" Nora exclaimed, bouncing back and forth on her heels as her teammates threw their trash away. They only had fifteen minutes until Lunch ended and she _refused_ to wait any longer.

Team RWBY waited for their friends to make it out of the cafeteria, Blake was thankful that she didn't hear anyone around, she wasn't ashamed of what she was but if people with certain disposition overheard it they might cause trouble they didn't need.

"So who should start?" Yang asked while they waited.

"I will," Blake stated, her teammates didn't object to that decision.

"If you feel you're up to it." Ruby didn't really want her to do anything she was uncomfortable with.

"I am." Blake reassured the younger girl.

As JNPR joined them in the hallway that confidence was shaken, she could feel her heartbeat in her ears and took a deep breath to calm herself. "So..." Nora started, Blake braced herself, lowering her eyes to the floor, and began.

"I guess we should start at the beginning... I'm a Faunus, and I worked with the White Fang a long time ago, back when it was a simple protest group." With an unsteady hand she pulled on her bow, undoing it and revealing her cat-like ears to the four.

When she didn't hear any reaction Blake looked up at their faces, half expecting them to be horrified or disgusted, but instead they just looked surprised, when she didn't continue Jaune spoke up "You aren't with them now though, right?"

Blake nodded her head.

"Alrighty, that's way in past then and who cares if you're a Faunus? You're still Blake, and speaking of Blake, why were you at the docks and what happened?" Nora's summary ended and the black-haired girl let out a breath she didn't know she was holding as the rest of JNPR nodded in agreement.

"Thank you." Blake said quietly, she re-tied her bow on her head, covering her ears from sight once again.

"So, a few days ago we took a trip to Vale-"

Blake started to tell JNPR what lead to yesterday's events, the fight Weiss and Blake had, and the team's personal accounts what went on after Blake ran away. The events at the docks were mostly told by Ruby and Blake as both Yang and Weiss weren't there for the fight while Sun and Penny weren't at the school.

When they got to the part where Drei stepped in against the Super Helicopter that had Ruby, Sun, and Penny pinned down, Team JNPR were shocked to hear that the Grimm had torn apart within a few seconds, while Penny's weird energy blasts only managed to somewhat damage it.

"- and then we had to explain to the police what happened, without telling them anything about Drei of course..." Blake finished, the other team sat there for a moment processing everything.

"The White Fang... so close to the school... and that guy knows about Drei now." Pyrrha pondered what that kind of person would do with such knowledge, honestly, she thought that was why Ozpin kept the nonhostile Grimm a students and staff only secret, and the teachers were apparently doing so as well.

That and is just sounded ridiculous in the first place.

Even if a few of the students were to claim there was an intelligent Grimm to the public, who would actually believe them? But a person like Ozpin... that wouldn't be dismissed so easily.

"I guess that's why he was so tired, well, that and the training he was doin earlier today..." Nora would have to ask him why exactly he felt the need to do that...

The bell rang out, signaling the end of the lunch period. The two teams began walking to their next classes together.

Blake found that with her only real friends at the academy all being in the know about her secret she felt... lighter. Even though she still had the bow on, the fact that more people knew about that and her past and _still_ accepted her meant far more than Blake would care to admit.

From the cafeteria, Drei had felt a brief amount of shock after the eight left partway through the lunch period but nothing more, _"I guess it went fine."_ He hadn't honestly thought JNPR would have a bad response to Blake's true nature.

 _"After all, they were surprisingly open-minded about_ me _of all things."_

* * *

 **EKM**

* * *

Cinder steadied her breathing as she made her way to her two cohorts, her employer had been informed of the seemingly intelligent Grimm that had tipped the scales against them during their Dust Heist operation. Entering the common room she saw Mercury was once again trying to see just how far he could push Emerald before she burst.

Of course, the two stopped upon seeing Cinder's still pale face, "So, what's the news from the boss?" Mercury's voice had a strangely serious expression as he asked, contrasting heavily with his usual tone.

There was only _one_ thing he knew of that could turn Cinder that ghastly.

"The plan hasn't changed, but keep on your guard around _it_ , the creature's abilities aside from combat are relatively unknown." By the time Cinder finished the color had returned to her face, though she left for her quarters rather quickly.

Mercury looked at Emerald, "So, you find the location of that guy yet?" Roman's little blunder at the docks had caused a bit of unrest among the White Fang, and apparently one of them was attempting to leave for Vacou.

"Mhmm, and Roman's wasting time by not taking care of him." She replied.

"Man.. why do we have to pick up after him? I mean, we don't really need much more dust at this point, it's such a hassle." Mercury laid back on the couch.

Emerald sighed, her partner wasn't one for long term plans really and he had the attention span of a Boston Terrier after a pound of sugar.

"Cinder says we need him for now, that's all that should matter. I have his address, let's go." She stood from her seat and started for the door, Mercury groaned in displeasure before going after her.

He can only hope they'll move on to phase two soon, he was getting tired of sleeping in random warehouses.

* * *

 **A/N**

 **This chapter doesn't feel quite right to me but I hope it was at least somewhat interesting, any feedback would be appreciated =D**

 **I was always a bit bothered that JNPR just suddenly had knowledge of Blake's secret and decided to have a chapter to showing them finding out.**

 **I'm also of the mind that Cinder's helpers are a bit in on everything, that doesn't seem like something like that could be hidden. There's a bit of setup to the first episode of season 2 with what Emerald and Mercury do to that guy.**

 **Fun fact, I have that story that Oobleck began speaking about fleshed out more, and made it long before I knew about the Deity Brothers in RWBY proper.**


	19. Food Fights, Past Fights, Phase Two

**Happy New Year everyone!**

* * *

In the city of Vale there was a small, but well-stocked bookstore. It had less traffic than what one would expect of a bookstore close to the middle of town, as despite the wide variety of the literature and the reasonable prices many people refused to shop there, the reason being that the owner was a Faunus.

Thankfully, this didn't cut into his profit too much, but it was still frustrating when potential customers walked into the store, took a look and saw what he was, and then walked out with only a disgusted face.

Currently, the shop was closing up, rather hastily too.

Tukson was packing some things up in the back for a trip he felt the need to take, there had been some... bad business recently that he wanted to get away from, _fast_.

The door chime went off, signaling a customer had entered the building. He made sure to zip up and set his bags on a table before he started walking up front, "Be right there!" He shouted as he passed through two sets of doors.

"Welcome to Tukson's Book Trade, Home to every book under the sun!", his excitement vanished as he took in who exactly had entered the building.

There was a grey haired boy in black and a green haired girl, he barely resisted cursing up a storm; from what he recalled about that briefing just before the job at the docks these two fit the bill of that witch's lackeys.

Clearing his throat, Tukson put on a friendly smile, "How may I help you?"

The male in black had a book open but wasn't reading it, instead, he was looking at Tukson, "We're just browsing." He closed the book with a snap and placed it back on the shelf.

"I see, well I am sorry to say that we will be closing soon, I apologize for the inconvenience." Tukson put on an act of regret.

"But the sign says open." The girl with green hair said as she pointed at the item in question, the disappointment in her words almost sounded genuine.

"I was just getting around to changing it," Tukson replied, barely managing to keep his voice level.

The boy smiled, "In a hurry to get somewhere pops?" He mosied back to the front of the store and picked up a comic.

"A family member is sick you see, she won't live to see the next summer I'm afraid and I wish to be with her before then." The girl let out a hum as she browsed his collection but the boy starting clicking his tongue.

"I didn't know you had a sister in Vacou, and so soon after the botched Dust raid? Your friends in the White Fang won't be pleased about losing a member so soon Tukson." Mercury went to the front of the building and dimmed the windows till they were black.

"So I'm just gonna assume you know why we're here?" The boy now had a bloodthirsty grin.

"I have a feeling." Tukson nearly snarled back.

"Shame too," the girl began, "You have a lot of really good books, but I couldn't find The Third Crusade, guess your slogan is wrong." She stopped browsing and joined her compatriot, standing a few feet from him; the inhabitants of the store stood motionless, waiting for the slightest movement.

Tukson broke the standoff.

"YOU WON'T TAKE ME ALIVE!" He shouted, jumping across the counter, claws ready to kill.

The two defended themselves, the boy blocked a strike with his right leg, a metallic clang echoing throughout the building as the owner's claws met metal.

The girl pulled out a pistol and aimed it at his head.

"You're right," a shot rang out and the man slumped to the floor.

The boy covering his ringing ears, waiting for it to stop before speaking up, "Did you have to mess up my clothes?" Getting all that red out would take awhile.

"Shut up Mercury."

"You shoulda learned by now that that won't happen Emerald, now help me get rid of this guy's body... by the way, do you think he'll will mind if I take that comic?"

* * *

 **EKM**

* * *

The members of team RWBY, plus Drei, were sitting together at a table. Drei was across from Yang, his hind legs were on the bench while his forelegs were on the table. Yang was currently tossing grapes at the Grimm who was catching them in his mouth, every time he ate one of them his tail wiggled uncontrollably for a second or two as the flavor hit him.

Green grapes being his favorite fruit had been somewhat surprising to discover, and since then Drei had made few efforts to _not_ eat them every time they were presented.

Yang grinned before throwing one directly up, intent to catch it in her mouth. Drei made no move to stop the fruit from finishing what it had been thrown to do, but he did growl when Yang looked at him teasingly.

The blond brawler gazed to her side and saw Blake looking at a book, she scooted over to the ninja of the team, "So.. whatcha doin?"

Blake closed the book, "Going over notes from last semester." Yang popped another grape in her mouth, "Sound boring."

Yang popped another grape in her mouth, "Sound boring."

Before Drei could let out a second growl a grape flew at him from another table, he caught it with his mouth and saw Nora with a spoon. Yang gave the other girl a thumbs up, she had _fantastic_ aim with that thing.

Ruby slammed a binder down right next to Drei, it originally read _Vytal Festival Activities, Property of Weiss Schnee_ , but that had been shoddily crossed out in red marker and replaced by the title _Best Day Every Activities, by Weiss Schnee_ , though it was suspiciously in Ruby's handwriting... "Sister, Friends... Weiss-"

"Hey!"

"Four Score and Seven minutes ago I had a dream,"

 _"Does she have narcolepsy... or sleep-walk?"_ Drei questioned in his head.

"This'll be good," Yang said before popping another grape into her mouth. The Grimm narrowed his eyes at her.

Ruby continued despite her sister's interruption, "A dream that the nine of us would come together, united as one _team_ , and have the Best. Day. _Ever_. Of all time."

Weiss just looked at her team leader with a blank stare, "Did you steal my binder?"

Ruby made two peace signs with her hands "I am not a crook."

Drei unsheathed his claws and hastily scribbled some words into the Dust Pad, thankfully he had found it again a few days ago, **"You _are_ a liar, though..."**

"Hey!"

"What are you talking about?" Blake asked.

"I'm talking about starting off this semester with a bang!" Ruby answered excitedly, getting over Drei's accusation with ease. Yang grinned and seized the opportunity her sister had provided.

"I always start off my semesters with a _Yang_ , amirite?"

"Booo!" Someone shouted in the cafeteria, followed by an apple smacking Yang in the face, she turned to glare at Nora, who was holding the spoon in post-flinging position. Drei's tail slithered onto the table and picked the offending fruit up, tossing it into his mouth, there

Drei's tail slithered onto the table and picked the offending fruit up, tossing it into his mouth, there was a loud crunch and a splash of juice, and it was no longer with them.

"Wow... didn't need to see that," Yang said, she and Blake had disturbed expressions as they witnessed with front row seats the death of the apple, momentarily they wondered how their Grimm friend had such skill at performing that sort of thing, but honestly they didn't want to think about it too much.

Ruby piped up again, "Guys, it's been two weeks and they were good and all but with new exchange students and the tournament at the end of the year our second semester is going to be great! I just want us to do some cool things before classes start back up tomorrow."

Drei blinked and began writing once more **"So you want to end _this_ semester with a bang, or are you going to also do something tomorrow?"**

"Semantics!" Drei didn't know if she was using that word right.

"I don't know if I am more proud of your initiative or terrified of your plans..." Weiss lamented as she looked at the binder with narrowed eyes, Ruby taking it from her was also sort of frustrating.

Yang, and discretely, Drei, picked up some of the apples on their table and threw them at another table, Yang's aim was off though as she just chucked it behind her.

"Hey!" An unfamiliar voice shouted out while Nora giggled.

"Nice catch Jaune, oooh gimmie _that_." Drei lowered his head closer to the table, he hadn't meant to hit Jaune with that apple.

Blake looked at her notebook; if the White Fang had been operating than he might be around... "I might sit this one out." She said.

"I got it!" Nora shouted out, "Whatever we decide on we should spend today together as a team."

Weiss said, "I for one think that-" Weiss was silenced by a plate of pie, whipped topping included, smacking her in the face. It slowly fell onto the floor and all that could be seen of the heiress' face were immaculate and furious eyes.

Drei was making it worse with his wheezing laughter, Weiss gave him a glare before looking for the culprit. It didn't surprise her that it was Nora, the single slice that hadn't been thrown in her hands as she grinned.

Nora's teammate's had varying reactions, an exasperated Ren covering his face, a shocked Pyrrha covering her mouth, and Jaune looking at her with wide eyes as he tried to get a small piece of apple out of his ear, all the while Drei's wheezing remained a constant source of annoyance to her.

Weiss scooped up some of the pie in her hands, "This means war," Her voice shook with anger, but it was no more than a whisper.

* * *

 **EKM**

* * *

In the hallways of Beacon Academy, Sun, the monkey Faunus from the docks, was walking next to a friend and teammate of his, Neptune. Sun had been telling him about everything that went down at the Docks but hadn't informed him of some of the more... exotic individuals that had made their appearance.

"Man, that's harsh," Neptune commented as they walked to the cafeteria.

"I know, we were fighting side by side, she was super fast and used her Semblance in a cool way. I threw a banana at the guy, which sounds gross but trust me it was awesome." Sun replied with excitement.

"Nice!" Neptune said with a grin, looks like Sun has a bit of a crush.

"Right! And the best part is that she's a Faunus. But... keep that on the down-low alright?" Sun's attraction made a bit more sense now. He always preferred Faunus to Humans.

"Of course," Neptune said with a smile, _Totally going to tell Scarlet first chance I get._

Sun leaned in close, "And not secret as in 'I'm going to tell Scarlet when Sun's back is turned', got it?"

"Haha... of course man, I get it." _Did Sun gain telepathy when I wasn't looking? GET OUT OF MY HEAD!_

"You better, I mean, the people here at the bomb, no offense to you guys." Little did Sun know that the cool people he knew were currently waging a food fight of the ages, Jaune somehow got launched across the room and hit a mystery meat splattered wall.

The _coolest_ guys.

"None taken," Sun apparently wanted to make a good first impression, and honestly, who better to bring along than Neptune?

"I just don't want to screw this up, y'know?" Neptune nodded understandingly and the two walked in silence till reaching the Cafeteria doors.

"Uhh, before we go in I should probably tell you that one of them is a bit... strange. When you see him, and trust me, you'll know who I'm talking about, be cool alright?"

Sun had entirely omitted Drei's involvement... which now seemed like a bad idea. Oh well, might as well drop him in the deep end and hope he swims... or more appropriately doesn't attack the scary friendly Grimm.

"Dude, who do you think you're talking to?" Neptune answered with a confident smile, his teeth seemed to gleam in the light.

"Good Point." Sun opened the door and immediately the screams of students assaulted their ears. _"Oh my god Drei's killing people,"_ That thought raced through Sun but was quickly squashed by another scream.

"FOOD FIGHT!"

"What the heck's going on?" Neptune said looking worried, what _really_ bothered him was the obvious Grimm sitting _in the middle of the room_. All that it was doing was catching food out of the air, why wasn't it attacking anyone?

Why wasn't anyone attacking it?!

"And what's that doing here!" He pointed to the creature as it caught another thrown pastry in its mouth, Drei saw Neptune pointing and just tilted his head at the boy. Sun hastily began the explanation, "Sothat'saGrimmhisnameisDreiandhe'ssuperstronghetookoutthatsuperchopperthingybuthe'sreallynice!" Sun rapidly got out while holding Neptune in place.

"Drei? It has a name?! I thought you said that weird chick with the lasers took that thing out!" Sun not being in a hurry to attack the creature made it not a big priority to Neptune, but his eyes still hadn't left it.

"Well... that last one is _technically_ true, but only cuz he smashed it up first..."

Neptune saw the Grimm's tail blur, when it stopped moving there was a cupcake wrapped up in it, it stared directly at Sun and tossed it, thought it nailed its actual target which was Neptune.

"Another point for JNPR!" Jaune shouted.

"Nu uh! That's a point for RWBY!" Ruby argued.

"It's a JNPR point by Royal Decree of the Queen!" Nora proclaimed from atop a hastily built and structurally unsound tower of tables, looking down on the peasants who _dared_ to try and take her points.

Ruby stomped a foot onto the table in front of her, pointing at JNPR with determination, "Rise up my friends! Rise up and take the throne! Our justice will be swift! Our justice will be painful!" The excitable girl picked up a milk carton, "Our justice will be delicious!"

The other members of RWBY raised their fists to the air, "YEAH!" The food fight between RWBY and JNPR began thusly, but in the end, RWBY won after managing to stick JNPR to the wall, though they lost two good people that day. Weiss was unconscious from Turkey related impacts and Yang had flown into the air and gone through the ceiling.

Sun just grinned, "I love these guys." Drei had been more of a neutral side of the war, throwing food at both sides of the conflict, and some more stuff at the two boys at the door for good measure, nearly painting Neptune with grape soda.

"Yeah.." He said frustrated, "They seem to be a great business source for cleaning companies..." The door behind them opened once more to reveal Glynda Goodwitch, the moment she walked into the room the chaos within it was halted, the misplaced tables were all lifted and put in order, and all the food, from the largest clump to the smallest morsel, was frozen in the air.

"Children," Glynda adjusted her glasses as she glared at them, her voice wavered, frustrated by their antics, "Please do not play with your food." The scraps were dropped from her grip and splattered to the floor. Nora was the first to respond by letting out a loud burp, her friends tried their hardest to not laugh but failed in their attempts to restrain themselves.

Yang finally reappeared and came crashing down onto one of the replaced tables, laughing as she got up from the wreckage unharmed.

Glynda's eye began twitching just as Ozpin entered the room, placing a hand on her shoulder, "Let it go." He said calmly. Drei walked up to the two teachers as Glynda let out a frustrated sigh.

"They're supposed to be the _defenders of the world_."

Ozpin gave a barely noticeable shrug, "They will be, but right now they are children." Ozpin saw the teams giggling about something together, "Let them play the part while they still can, it isn't a role they will ever get the chance to return to."

"So... anyone going to address the Grimm in the room?" Neptune said and Ozpin turned to the boy.

"You'll learn all about our guest soon enough, but I assure you he is harmless... to us."

Drei barely paid attention to their conversation, instead, he was looking at team JNPR and RWBY enjoying themselves, the "food fight" had been a quite fun to be honest, he noted that everyone had bits and pieces of food on their clothes that would take a few washes to get out, especially Weiss', which were pure white.

Jaune was more or less drenched in ketchup, which was possibly the last thing Drei ever wanted to see, the sight of a red stained Arc caused a _very_ bad memory reared its ugly head.

* * *

 **EKM**

* * *

 _The Beast had decided to assist Joan in building a wooden cave to live in while she was stuck; apparently, the human desired such housing to the stone cave she had been sleeping next to the Demon until now._

 _This essentially amounted to Joan telling him she needed some logs and him cutting down trees as needed with the swipe of a tail. Her skill at constructing a large box made of wood was impressive._

 _As the light faded and the large, white circle appeared in the sky The Beast and Joan went to bed, now with her in the "cabin" as she referred to it while he returned to the cave under the tree._

 _The Beast laid himself on the floor and curled into a ball, but unlike all the times before he found rest evaded him. He tossed and he turned, trying out different positions in an attempt to let sleep claim him but it continued to escape his grasp._

" _What is wrong with me?" The Beast thought to itself, confused. It had always been perfectly capable of resting even while its younger kin were making noise, so what was preventing it from doing so again?_

 _When the Beast finally slept, it woke against within minutes to a wave of despair coming from close by, though he felt it moving further away. Irritated, the Beast crawled out of its home into the clearing, the first thing he saw a was the newly built cabin had a large hole in it, and Joan wasn't located within the structure._

 _The Demon's glowing red eyes shined bright as it realized who the source of despair was, he saw Beowolf and Ursa pad prints leading into the forest and bolted after them, following the trail as fast as his legs could take him._

 _Low hanging branches and shrubs were ripped apart as it ran, the emotion was getting thicker, more unpleasant, which told it that it was gaining on Joan._

"They **dare!** " _They hadn't disturbed It for hundreds of years, and they choose now to return and rip the only being it can actually connect to from its arms?!_

 _It felt that they had stopped moving, at most a mile away, The Beast broke into a clearing and saw Demons gathering, the ones responsible for taking Joan had obviously been at least somewhat cunning, they made sure the superior predator was away before stealing something in his kingdom._

 _The Beast was seconds away from Joan but an Ursa's claws just barely managed to reach her first, her aura failed to protect against the bear-like Demon's attack, streaks of red were visible on her torso as she fell to the ground._

 _Taking in that sight the beast felt something... alien to it, it had felt negative emotions before to be sure, frustration at its lack of company, agitation at the Demons around it, and annoyance at the few moments it had experienced the White Noise from humans, but that had been long ago._

 _It had no name for the new feeling, but the moment Joan hit the ground injured an intense, all-consuming need to hurt the Demon responsible, to make it **pay**_ _, coursed through its very existence._

 _The Beast's body began to change, what amounted to bones in its body splintered and cracked, taking on new forms. With a furious howl, it completed taking on a form closer to the typical Beowolf._

 _The Demon surrounding it began retreating instinctively, but the Ursa wasn't so lucky and before it could move, or even react, the Beast's jaw was clamped around its throat, ripped out a chunk of skin before tackling it to the ground._

 _The Ursa began disappearing, dead on impact. Picking himself up the Beast let out an absolutely demonic roar, warning every Grimm nearby to leave, or else._

 _Only a few tried to challenge the elder Demon and they were all promptly torn to shreds._

 _"Wolf..." Joan croaked out, The Beast let out one last warning growl at the Demon before going to her. The Beast returned to it's normal, wolflike form and looked at her wounds, he saw a great deal of crimson, metallic smelling liquid coating her clothing and pooling onto the grass around her._

 _It didn't know much about creatures other than Demons, but it did know that this liquid was important, and losing too much of it was fatal._

 _At the rate it was leaving her, death was assured._

 _Joan was taking in short breaths, tears were welling up in her eyes. The Beast was confused by what he felt from her,_ "Why are you sad?" _It asked; she wasn't feeling fear anymore, only sadness._

 _Why?_

 _"you'll be... alone." Joan got out._

 _The Beast's eyes widened, why was she worried about that? Shouldn't she hate him for getting her killed?! "i.._. _enjoyed our time... thank you.." Joan's voice was weaker with every word, the instant she finished her sentence her eyelids began to close._

 _Without thinking the Beast placed his paws on Joan's wounds, she as the pain coursed through her and_ screamed as _the Wolf's being flowed into them._

 _All Demons, regardless of form, have a set of universal abilities. The capacity to restore other Demons at the expense of their own life was one of them._

 _The Beast didn't know if it would work on a creature like Joan, but he refused to lose her without trying to do_ something _to save her. His own body began degrading as it was drained, Joan's convulsed as he traded part of his being to restore hers._

 _Finally, just when he felt like he would die, Joan sucked in a breath of air and pushed his paws off her. With shaking hands, Joan touched where the Ursa had slashed into her, instead of open wounds or scarred tissue, she felt smooth skin, though it was a bit pale compared to the rest._

 _She looked at The Beast, it was taking in deep breaths and struggling to stay upright. "What... what did you do?"_

"I didn't want to lose my friend." _It thought simply, Friend meant someone you enjoy spending time with... how did it know that? The Demon felt her arms wrap around it, embracing it._

 _"Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou..." she repeated, Joan had no clue what he had done, all she knew was that he saved her life and that's all that mattered._

"Is this a 'hug'?" _The wolf thought to itself, it felt Joan nod into its shoulder._

 _The two managed to make it back to their clearing easy enough, Joan frowned at the wreckage that remained from her cabin._

 _"I'll make another one later..." She said before slipping into the cave under the tree once more._

* * *

 **EKM**

* * *

Drei snapped back to the present as Glynda got the student's attention, "If you would please clean up the mess you made after you're done _monkeying about_ , I'll overlook these events, _this time_." The strict woman left the cafeteria after making her stance known.

 _"Who says monkeying about?"_ Drei thought, just before getting up to help with the cleanup, he _had_ contributed to it after all.

As he helped the two teams he finally realized what that feeling he had was called all those years ago, it wasn't just the anger he had been subjected to when Blake's identity was revealed and RWBY nearly fell apart, no, it was much more than that.

He had felt **_rage_**.

Thankfully, Nora was there to distract him from his memories. He grunted as she jumped on his back, the other members of JNPR were waiting at the door while RWBY had already gone on ahead of them, "Suprise piggyback ride! We've got classes a day filled with fun stuff to do with the guys and gals! Away!"

Ren placed his head in his hand but had a smile on his face at Nora's antics. Jaune still couldn't get over how Drei always allowed Nora to "request" piggybacks, while Pyrrha just had an amused look on her face.

Drei let out a seemingly frustrated sigh before taking off, Nora's excited screams filled the halls as they bolted through the school.

"He's not fooling anyone with that routine anymore," Ren commented as he, Pyrrha, and Jaune followed after them.

* * *

 **EKM**

* * *

Mercury and Emerald had made it quick stop to the cleaners before continuing to Roman's base of operations, thankfully, the owner of the place didn't ask questions and was paid handsomely to keep his mouth shut.

The comic Mercury had stolen was discarded after a few blocks and set on fire, apparently, he found it bland. _"So much for stealing it..."_ Emerald had thought at that time.

They opened the doors and saw the White Fang were moving crates filled with Dust, the warehouse was filled with enough to easily level the entire block.

A hand grabbed both of them by the shoulders and pulled them into a big group hug, "Oh hey, look who it is! She sent the kids again without saying hi, just like the divorce." Roman teased.

Emerald shivered in disgust before pushing him away, "Spare us the thought of you being able to have children."

"I always thought you were the disgusting result of a meltdown at a turd manufacturing plant." Mercury chimed in.

Roman shrugged off the insult, "That was a joke, and _this_ ," Roman held up a piece of paper, "will tell me where you've been."

Emerald checked her pockets, "What? How'd you-"

"Pay attention and maybe you'll learn something." Roman said, cutting her off, he read the paper and looked back at them, "Why do you have the address?"

"Wouldn't you like to know." Mercury taunted, Roman glared at him.

"Yeah, I would. What have you two been doing all day?"

"Cleaning up your problems, obviously, well, _one_ of them," Mercury replied.

Roman's eye twitched in anger, "I had that under _control_."

"Two packed bags and a ticket to Vacou said otherwise."

Roman grabbed Mercury's collar, "Listen here you little punk, if it were up to me I'd take you and your little street rat here and-"

"And what Roman?" Cinder's voice came from above.

Roman abruptly let go of Mercury and turned to face her as the elevator she was on gradually lowered, he gave a nervous laugh before speaking "I'd uh... _not_ kill them."

"I thought I had made it clear I wanted you to take care of that runaway." She said as her elevator stopped on their level.

"I was _going_ to," Roman started to explain, Emerald cut in before he could say anything else.

"And he was going to be out of here by tomorrow, Mercury and I took out the rat before he could escape."

"I think he was actually a cat..." Mercury interjected.

"What, like a Puma?"

"Yeah there ya go."

" _Quiet_ , I also told the two of you to keep your hands clean while in Vale." Cinder said sharply, her two subordinates looked to the ground in shame.

"I just thought-" Emerald started.

Cinder stopped her, "Don't think, obey." She turned to Roman next, "And you, what's your excuse for not taking care of this problem like I said?"

Roman shook his head, "In case you haven't seen, I've been busy stealing every scrap of Dust in the Kingdom, look around. Dust prices are through the roof, there are Police camping every corner and we have so much Dust than I don't have a clue what you need all of it for, knowing what I actually need to acquire could help out a bit, by the way, could make things smoother when I have more information than 'We need Dust' to work with."

Cinder moved closer to Roman after he finished his rant, "Have some faith Roman, you have all the information you need to have. Besides, we're done with stealing Dust now, we have enough." Cinder started to walk away from them.

"Uh... right, so what are we doing now?" Roman asked.

Cinder didn't stop walking as she answered, "Moving, get the White Fang to clear this place out, I'll send you more details and coordinates soon."

Finally, she turned back to him before he could ask any more questions, "We're moving on to Phase Two, Mercury, Emerald."

"Yes ma'am?"

"Follow me, we're going to need something extra if we are to succeed in our part."

"Right.." The two ran up to Cinder and walked with her out of the Warehouse.

Roman just let out a sigh as he stood there, _"And now I wait..."_

* * *

 **So that was a thing, more bits of the past with Joan and Drei's terrible secret was revealed, he actually enjoys spending time with RWBY and JNPR, gasp!**

 **Also... ignore that the previous chapter originally had a thing that directly contradicts things said in this one, it had been rectified.**

 **Does anything think I should shift the rating to M? I feel that it might should as a precaution against fights scenes if they get too violent...**

 **Anywho, hope you guys enjoyed it.**

 **BTW... if anyone finds male pronouns in the past section for Drei please let me know, I think I got all of them but I'm not totally sure.**

 **Ciao for now, I hope everyone has a good 2017 and thanks for sticking with me all this time ^.^**


	20. New Introduction

**_Yay, another chapter within a month!_**

 ** _Also, wowzers, 600 follows and 500 faves? I honestly never expected this story to be so popular, it is a really weird premise after all._**

 _ **=================================|EKM|====================================**_

 _A constant, electronic beeping noise reached Jaune's ears as he opened his eyes._

 _In front of him with either worried or regretful expression, his good friends were standing in a line and staring, the area around them was covered in snow with the rocky peaking out beneath the snowfall regularly._

 _Drei's mouth was moving as the Grimm spoke, apparently, he was in the middle of an explanation, "I mean, look at it this way; if we kill you now there's a chance that the bomb won't go off and we will still be alive."_

 _"But I'll be dead!"_

 _The Wolf-like Grimm looked taken aback at Jaune's response, "Well Jaune, it's either you die alone or explode and we all die, I'm voting for the 'only one person dies' option." Everyone else quickly voiced their own agreement with the Grimm's words._

 _"I'm not gonna just let you kill me!" Jaune continued indignantly, meanwhile, his thoughts were a much different story,_ "WHAT IS GOING ON!" _He was desperately trying to move his mouth in a way that would ask that prominent question but nothing was leaving it._

 _"But you're gonna die anyway when the bomb goes off," Weiss pointed out in a pragmatic voice. The ticking had gotten much faster now as Ren informed them that they only had about 20 seconds to make a decision. Everyone was looking more and more willing to stop the bomb the only way they knew how._

 _"What can I say? Misery loves company." Wow, Jaune didn't know he could sound like such a selfish jerk._

 _Ruby's scythe changed into its rifle mode as the petite brunette aimed it at him, "Sorry about this Jaune." She didn't sound all that sorry..._

 _Jaune looked and saw that no one was in any hurry whatsoever to stop her._

 _"Man this blows, you guys suck," Jaune said, resigned to his fate and waiting for the black and red-garbed girl to kill him._

 _Suddenly, a gunshot rang out through the canyon, Ruby's rifle was knocked out of her hands as a bullet impacted it. "Ouch, what the heck?!" Ruby cried out._

 _Everyone turned to where the shot came from and saw Cardin standing on an outcropping, sniper rifle smoking as he planted the butt of it into the ground._

 _"Sorry Ms. Rose but I always get my man," Cardin stated in a strange accent._

 _"Not to ruin everyone's fun, but, three seconds." Did Ren's voice get deeper all the sudden? Good thing too as it focused everyone on the main problem they had._

 _The eight all had terrified looks on their faces as they stared at his chest._

 _"What?" Jaune looked down in surprise, and sure enough, the timer was wedged into his_ chest _, he didn't feel any pain from it, but he did observe that it was the kind you would find on an alarm clock._

 _Jaune watched as it hit 0:00 and let out a rapid series of beeps._

 _Rolling his eyes in long-suffering annoyance, Jaune began a sentence, "Oh, son of a bit-" The light of an absolutely massive, space hula hoop destroying, rift in time forming explosion released from his chest._

Abruptly the young Arc woke from his dream with a quiet gasp, checking his torso the blonde confirmed that his body was, in fact, unexploded, and a quick look around the room let him see the sleeping forms of his team.

They hadn't been sent to a shiny future where people talked by bobbing their heads up and down, everything was fine. Tiredly, Jaune rested his head back on his pillow and closed his eyes.

 _"I need to stop watching Green VS Orange so much."_ He thought as he tried to go back to sleep, he heard something breathing next to him and turned to see Drei facing the opposite wall. Apparently, the Grimm had decided to take half of the bed as his own.

Unwilling to deal with it right now, the leader of JNPR just ignored the Wolf sleeping next to him, turned to face the other way, and went back to bed.

 _ **=================================|EKM|====================================**_

The sight that Ozpin saw was that of an early morning, sun hanging high in the sky and giving light to the world. Already inside his office, the Headmaster also spotted several large airships outside the window and above Beacon Academy.

"It seems like Ironwood hasn't changed a bit." He said, voice seeming to carry a frown with it.

Glynda let out a hum, "He likes bringing his work with him."

"When one is as busy as General Ironwood you have to do whatever it takes to stay afloat, though this change in the skyline isn't pleasing to look at," Ozpin commented, just before he heard a knock on his office door.

 _"That must be the man of the hour himself,"_ Ozpin briefly entertained the idea of ignoring him, he didn't dislike Ironwood per-say, but the two had differing opinions about certain subjects.

Still, having one who views the world differently from oneself in their situation was mostly welcomed by the Headmaster, having different ways of looking at an issue could be beneficial.

Glynda looked annoyed as Ozpin called whoever was behind the door, sure enough, it was Ironwood.

"Ozpin!" The man greeted with a grin, moving further into the room.

The headmaster in question barely reacted, "Hello General." He returned with a nearly imperceptible smile.

"No need to be so formal Oz," Ironwood shook his fellow Headmasters hand, "and Glynda! It's been far too long since we've met."

Glynda gave a somewhat forced wave, "Oh hello James, good to see you." She abruptly dropped the facade. "I'll be outside." She informed the two before leaving.

As the door closed Ironwood shook his head, "You'd think that one drunken night would be forgiven after ten years." Ozpin gave a small chuckle.

"Glynda isn't a particularly forgiving individual, but I don't need to tell _you_ of all people that." Ozpin sat in his chair as Ironwood took the one across from him.

"So, what brings you all the way down here from Atlas?" Ozpin asked as he fished out a mug and kettle, pouring some of his favorite blend of coffee into it. "It is quite unusual for a headmaster to join their students for the Vrytal Festival after all." Beacon's Headmaster handed the drink to Ironwood, who promptly pulled out a canteen that contained dust only knows what within.

Internally, Ozpin sigh in disappointment at the sight before him, _"Wasted coffee."_ He lamented as James just _destroy_ the perfectly brewed beverage with some form of alcohol.

"Well, you know me Ozzy, I can't resist the look of Vale this time of year." James took a swig of his drink, letting out a satisfied noise as the taste reached him. "And it looked like the perfect opportunity for a couple of old friends to catch up." He finished with a smile.

"Well, unless we are the sort of friends who routinely try to harm each other I don't understand the need for such a display of power. I must admit, such firepower at my front door has me concerned." Ozpin noted as he looked at the Airships.

"The Grimm you have running around here has _me_ concerned." Ironwood fired back, with a raised eyebrow the silver-haired man turned to face him.

"Oh, so you are aware of Drei?"

"It has a name?"

"Apparently Ms. Xiao Long took the liberty of giving him one, it took quite well to it from what I am told." It had been a bit of a surprise to see the Grimm so readily accept a random name, though from what he had been informed, Nora's previous attempt was too long.

"Can it be trusted." Ironwood was straight to the point, as always.

"I have no reason to distrust it." James seemed to accept that answer and relaxed a bit, "That can't be the only reason you brought a fleet to my doorstep." Ozpin noted.

"You and I both know why I brought them, Ozzy."

Ozpin let out a hum as he sipped some of his beverage before setting it down on the table with a clunk, "We are in a time of peace James, such a display of force could give off the wrong impression."

Ironwood also placed his mug on the table, "If what we learned from Qrow is true-" The Atlas man was cut off by Ozpin.

"If what he said was true we will handle it tactfully," He raised a single index finger, indicating that he wasn't to be interrupted. "The upcoming festival is a time of peace, unity, a celebration. I would prefer it if you didn't cause unrest among the civilians by bringing an army with you to Vale."

"With what we're up against I'm just trying to keep everyone safe," Ironwood sounded more than a little frustrated, the two have had this disagreement many times before.

Atlas was a country where the Hunter Academy, Government, and Military were all one institution, Vale was not. While the two countries were allies they both considered the measures the other took to be unreasonable at times.

"So am I, and we should continue to do so by training the next generation of Hunters and Huntresses as best we can," Ozpin never raised his voice.

"Preparing the next generation is something we can agree on," James finished his drink before getting up to leave, "But ask yourself this Ozzy: Can children win this war?"

With a frown, Ozpin looked at his reflection in the coffee, "I hope they never have to." Ironwood opened the door to leave, giving a brief nod to the two before continuing on his way.

 _ _ **=================================|EKM|====================================**__

Weiss looked at her kingdom bitterly as it fell to an overwhelming invasion force, her attempts to prevent Atlas from falling were met time and time again with failure as the Grimm forces just kept coming.

The group was in the library at the moment, playing an online variant of Remnant: The Game. This one was about developing your kingdom and trying to protect your people. Five players chose which country to command. The choices were Atlas, Vale, Mistral, Vacou, and in the special edition they were currently playing, Grimm.

The players had been at the start Ruby, Yang, Weiss, Jaune, and Drei, all on different computers. Ruby had picked Vale, Weiss chose Atlas, Yang decided to be Vacou, while Jaune was Mistral. Drei had been the first to decide his Kingdom and went with Grimm.

Weiss had gotten a few good hits in on Drei's army in the beginning and was seemingly outwitting him every turn, it had quickly turned out that the Wolf was luring her into a false sense of superiority.

She had thought that the large amount of Grimm Drei sent at her were the entirety of his forces, but after destroying all of them at the expense of over half her army, a good tradeoff to Weiss, the smile was wiped off her face when two other groups suddenly flanked her.

They were both Grimm.

After retreating and bunkering down in the Captial City, Weiss' Atlas was bombarded by Grimm forces and was soon destroyed despite her best efforts.

The grand feeling of victory was replaced by an "Atlas has Fallen" text over her screen in just a few minutes.

A muffled scream left her as Atlas was knocked out of the running, where her once mighty, blue and white building had been was a red-black ant mound looking construct.

Sitting at another table, Blake looked at them curiously as Yang began her turn, "Alright sis, I hope you've said your prayers because I will show no mercy to your people!" Yang grinned savagely, she attacked Vale from all sides, striking from above with Airships and Helicopters, from the ground with Hunters and Android Armies.

Before she ended her turn Yang hunkering down, putting all of her troops in the most defendable position possible before waiting for her sister to retaliate. "The people of Vale will not take this abuse anymore!" Ruby's only real option at that time was using her long range Dust Volley Tanks to hammer Yang's hunkered army, it dealt a good chunk of damage, punching some holes in her defensive line.

"I will take ten pints of blood for every drop you spill!" Yang promised with a dark look, Ruby shuddered just the smallest bit at the intensity.

When it landed on Jaune's turn, he began preparing to defend against Drei's forces, which were closest to his own. He began working on every Anti-Grimm unit he could find and placed all of his already built up forces in a few defensive circles around his Capital City.

Drei had a small grin on his canine features as he began pumping out twice as many forces and went after Jaune.

After another fifteen minutes went by, Jaune was barely keeping Drei from overwhelming his forces while Yang and Ruby kept having their war.

After a series of bad calls, hilariously overpowered weapons, and several destroyed mountain ranges, Yang and Ruby's armies had taken serious losses, about a tenth of what they were during the start of the conflict.

Before their next turn, the two got some grave news.

"Truce?" Ruby looked at her sister worried, her scouts had just reported back that Jaune's Kingdom was currently being assaulted by the forces of Grimm, _and_ the reason no one had seen anything of Weiss' recently.

The Kingdom of Atlas had been absolutely destroyed by Drei, and now it was just another spawn point for his forces.

Yang's scouts reported the same thing, "Agreed," Thankfully these weren't actual people on the game, otherwise, they might be a bit upset with how quickly their ruler switched her agenda for Vale from "kill em all" to "peace time now."

Meanwhile, Jaune had tried to send a few requests for aid but his attempts were constantly harassed by Drei's outer forces, which were on the lookout for any flying stragglers.

Yang and Ruby, on the other hand, sent a small task force to assist Jaune, and together they just barely made it to his Capital City, a single Airship remained, and it was badly damaged in the attempt. "Oh thank goodness." Jaune was filled with relief as he clicked the "accept" prompt, agreeing to an alliance with both girls.

Drei let out a frustrated noise when he saw them rally against his forces.

Sadly, the three remaining Kingdoms had taken far too long to stop fighting amongst themselves and were slowly worn down by Drei's Grimm, Yang's Vacou was the first to fall, hammered relentlessly until they just couldn't fight anymore. Ruby had cried out in mock rage before releasing everything she had on the Grimm, but her strategy of "attack attack attack" was quickly dealt with and Vale was destroyed.

In only a few minutes, Vale, Atlas, and Vacou had been removed from play is was all up to Jaune's Mistral to defeat the Grimm, who now had the ability to pump out four times the forces he could.

Weiss, Ruby, and Yang had crowded around his computer, Jaune was a bit nervous to have them over his shoulder, watching his every move as he tried to fight against Drei.

"You can do it Jaune!" Ruby cheered him on, Yang joined in on encouraging him to victory while Weiss just waited for him to lose.

She waited.

And waited.

...and waited.

 _"Has it really been fifteen minutes?"_ Weiss checked the screen just to make make sure and saw that it had indeed been that long. She looked past Jaune to the Grimm that defeated them she saw he was sticking his tongue out in concentration.

She was brought out of her thoughts by Jaune pulling his headphones off and cupping his face, a disappointed, muffled sigh left him as the words "Your Kingdom Has Fallen" spread across the screen.

The timer read 0:45:38 when the scoreboard came up, to her embarrassment it showed Weiss was knocked out after only sixteen minutes.

"Wow Weiss, you got wrecked early huh?" Yang grinned at her teammate.

"While you were busy pointlessly fighting your sister I was trying to take out the Grimm!" Weiss defended.

"How do you think I feel," Jaune commented in monotone, still cupping his face.

"Maybe we should've teamed up sooner, taken out Grimm nation before it became too big of a threat." Ruby was a bit less energetic than when she was cheering Jaune on but still seemed peppy.

Drei approached and sat down in front of them, tail swooshing behind him as he basked in the glorious feeling of victory.

"You don't have to rub it in our faces," Weiss informed the winner.

 ** _"I think I did fairly well, though having your Kingdoms fight amongst themselves helped out a bunch."_** Drei's dust pad was getting a lot of use these days.

It was times like these that made Weiss want to destroy it.

"That's... actually a good point." Ruby looked down at her combat skirt as she wondered if the four Kingdoms had problems like that during the Great War, negativity must've been off the charts, drawing boatloads of Grimm to their gates.

She was brought out of her thoughts as the teams began studying again.

Jaune had attempted to get out of studying the boring subject of "History" by discretely putting a comic over the textbook, but Pyrrha noticed quickly.

Considering that the Arc was struggling more with history than anything else, though he was still passing by a fair bit, and that was the class they were studying for, Pyrrha took it upon herself to make _sure_ he was preparing for the subject.

Jaune's comic book was taken by Pyrrha, his hurt, betrayed expression remained unnoticed by the Spartan as she made sure to not look at him.

Their leader's puppy dog eyes were second only to Ruby's when it counted.

Ren was quietly writing down relevant information, thankfully his louder classmates were done with the game now and he could focus.

Drei instantly started to snore lightly from next to the group, Ren slowly turned his head to the Grimm, gripping his pen a bit tighter.

Nora joined in, nose whistling as she slept. Ren took in a deep breath as he got more and more annoyed, Nora's face being so cute, err, content, as she slept through their study hour wasn't making him any less frustrated.

"Sup?" From the doorway, Suna and Neptune joined the two teams in the library.

Ruby grinned as she saw the golden-haired boy, "Sun!"

"Ruby, Blake, Yang..." Sun stopped for a moment as he looked at Weiss' agitated look, "Ice Queen." He finished greeting.

Weiss looked quite irritated, "Why does everyone keep calling me that?" She asked out loud.

Sun continued speaking despite her, "I never had the opportunity to introduce you to my friend, Neptune."

The person in question raised a brow, "Uhm, aren't libraries for reading?"

Ren threw his hands up, someone had finally said it, "Thank you!"

"Don't be a nerd," Sun admonished.

"Ah ah ah! Intellectual, thank you." Neptune corrected.

Nora woke up from her nap, "Pancakes!"

At this point, Ren realized that he still wouldn't be getting any studying in and dropped his pen with a frown.

Everyone else had stopped as well, looking at their newly arrived guests.

Weiss spoke up first, "So, Neptune, where are you from?"

"Haven," He informed the group, "And I don't think I caught your name, snow angel." Neptune adopted a charming smile as he moved over to Weiss.

The girl in question looked abashed as she replied, "um, I'm Weiss."

"Pleasure to meet you."

Jaune couldn't _believe_ how easily Neptune got on her good side, "You've got to be kidding me." He growled underneath his breath. From day one, despite his best efforts, Jaune hadn't been able to get her to give him the time of day, and now some stranger from Haven does it inside five seconds.

From his right, Jaune heard Drei also let out a growl, looking over he saw the Grimm nearly glaring at Neptune.

The members of JNPR that had seen Jaune's look could've _sworn_ the two had the same expression, but it was broken soon as Drei looked at his body confused before giving Jaune an accusing glare and leaving the room in a black blur.

 _"What did I do?"_ Jaune didn't think he had done anything wrong lately...

"Uhh.. what was that about?" Neptune looked a bit worried, Sun had said the creature would be cool, but it didn't seem all that calm just now.

"I wouldn't worry about it, Drei's really nice," Ruby assured the bluenette. Sun's expression brightened as he moved over to speak with Blake.

"Hey, with all the excitement I never got to ask if you'd like to go-"

Blake got out of her seat, "Sorry, I'm busy right now, bye." Sun was pushed to the side as Blake left the library.

Sun shook his head before saying a single word, "Women." He didn't think he'd every learn how they work.

Neptune shrugged before going back to flirting with Weiss, and after only a few minutes of being forced to listen to it, Jaune _also_ left the room.

Pyrrha hadn't tried to stop him as he walked out and instead made sure that Jaune's stuff was in order.

Ren was the only one to see it, everyone else was busy either chatting with Sun and Neptune or sleeping, but Pyrrha's somewhat aggressive body language suggested she was _very_ annoyed by something.

"Oh, are you guys playing Remnant?" Neptune saw the board game version was opened with a few pieces out of the box,

"Yup, but we did just finish a game," Yang replied.

"Would you be willing to play another with me?"

"Of course," Weiss said immediately, glaring at Yang when she heard the blonde brawler giggle underneath her breath.

 _ **=================================|EKM|====================================**_

Located on the grounds of Beacon Academy existed a garden, many times it was a place students would go to have a bit of peace and quiet, or to get away from a situation they don't want to be around.

Jaune was sitting on a bench in a foul mood, he wasn't afraid to admit it, he was jealous of Neptune. The other teen had suavely pulled off in _seconds_ what he had been aiming to do for _weeks_.

The blonde haired hunter was glaring intently at a single part of the fountain which resided in the center of the garden, but he was pulled out of his thoughts by a mass of black fur that appeared to his right.

"Something I can help you with?" He briskly asked the creature, the Grimm gave him a look before replying.

 **"You have a crush on Weiss."**

"How do you know that?" He questioned the beast. The creature just stared at him, was it really that obvious?

 **"I nipped you, remember?"** Oh, right, he had done that. Jaune let out an annoyed huff as it hit him that the creature took more than just his handwriting and a bit of his world knowledge.

Apparently, he was also aware of who Jaune was crushing on at that time.

 **"But, to be honest, it's really obvious."** Drei _helpfully_ supplied.

Jaune shook his head, "Why are you bringing this up?" A teenager's crush didn't seem like something the Grimm would be interes-

 **"Because of you, I also had one on her, or, the echo of one. I guess."** _That_ wasn't what Jaune expected to learn today.

"Wha...what do you mean?" He asked, utterly confused. _Drei_ had a crush on Weiss?!

 **"It should be dealt with now, and if any other imprints pop up at least I'll know where they originate from, and how to fix it,"** Drei informed the overreacting boy.

Jaune was too busy thinking back on Drei's behavior towards Weiss to answer, pulling pranks on her, being a general weirdo when anything involving the Heiress was concerned, and being frustrated at her the most in any situation that warranted an exasperated response.

Honestly, it sounded to him like a young child who had a crush on someone but didn't understand what to do about it yet. Drei saw the hunter-in-training grimacing for some reason and tilted his head at him confused.

 **"What is the matter now?"** He carved his question out.

Jaune seemed a bit startled as he returned from wherever he had gone to, "Nothing... don't ask." His thoughts could go to some _weird_ places.

The Grimm looked away in thought before he began to write something out.

 **"I'll be** **blunt** , **"** So no change then, **"-does Weiss show any interest in you?"** Jaune sat there for a moment before mumbling a response.

"Not really." He admitted disheartened.

 **"So why do you keep pining for her?"**

"Because she can be caring, she's intelligent, she's more than just a rich girl who doesn't care about anything? I mean, with her connections she could be _anything_ and instead of continuing the family business or doing _literally_ anything else she decided to come here and train to be a huntress." Drei just sat still as Jaune began to list everything.

"I mean, how many people would decide to pick up a sword when given a silver spoon? I don't know of many who would give up a life of comfort for fighting Grimm for the rest of their life... no offense."

 **"None taken, she doesn't seem to like you that way."** Jaune sat back once Drei pointed that out again. **"Maybe try to find someone who is skilled, caring, and does?"**

Those words seemed so incredibly obvious, but even so, Jaune had to wonder.

What kind of girl _would_ be interested in him?

As he thought about that, Drei decided that now was a great time for a nap and collapsed, basically glomping Jaune and knocking the Arc out onto his back.

The two were now laying together on the bench.

"Uhh... Drei?" Jaune asked, panicked, but all he got in response was a snore. Looking down he saw Drei's sleeping face settling in on his chest.

Letting out a frustrated sigh, the Arc resigned himself to this fate, he didn't know if he could even _move_ Drei. _"Why now?"_ He asked silently, staring into the heavens for answers.

 _ _ _ **=================================|EKM|====================================**___

While Jaune and Drei were dealing with the transference of crush-related issues, Neptune had beaten the remaining RWBY members at Remnant: The Game in the library. After a sound thrashing, they decided to retreat to their dorm. Ruby had been listening to Yang tease Weiss all the way to their room.

"We shouldn't have let him play, it isn't wise to fight someone you have no information on." Weiss' evaluation of the game seemed correct, except...

"Or someone that you are too busy flirting with." Yang poked a hole in it, the white-haired girl turned a shade of red as she tried to muster up a rebuttal.

"I think we can all agree that Weiss not taking my advice to attack is the real issue." Ruby said in a faux-disappointed tone, "And as your leader I expect you to follow my orders." She finished the fake lecture just before opening the door to their rooms and entering.

"Whatever, I wasn't the only one that lost." Weiss reminded her teammates. Neither found they could defend themselves from the accusation. Yang, Ruby, and Weiss saw Blake going over some papers as they walked in.

Their ninja-like teammate packed the papers into a nearby folder before making her way to the exit, Weiss narrowed her eyes as she tried to keep whatever she was doing secret from them, again.

She thought they made a promise to _not_ do that.

"Stop." Weiss' tone had a bit of a commanding vibe to it as she pointed at the retreating Blake, "You have been moody, quiet, and anti-social as of late, and I intend to find out why."

"Weiss, that's not all that different from normal." Yang pointed out the obvious.

The heiress paid her no mind, "Which I get, that's your thing, but not to _this_ degree. You made a promise, to all of us, that you wouldn't keep it a secret if there was something bothering you, so I'll just ask, what has gotten you in such a foul mood?"

Blake took her hand off the doorknob, "I just... I don't understand how _everyone_ can ignore what we saw at the docks." Weiss' agitated look gave way to an understanding one as Blake finally spoke up about what was bothering her.

"You're still worried about Torchwick?" Ruby was actually glad Weiss brought this up, it was something she had also noticed but summoning up the courage to address the elephant in the room was more difficult than she thought it would be.

"Not just him, but the White Fang and whoever gave them _military grade hardware_. Something is happening, something _big_ , and we're just _ignoring_ it?" Blake said, laying out her frustrations to the team.

Ruby nodded in understanding, "You're right, but Ozpin said to not worry about it, between him and the police I'm sure they've got it handled." She said, trying to reassure the worried girl.

"Well I'm _not_! They don't know the White Fang like me!" Blake's voice rose as she laid out her concerns.

"I understand you're worried about this, but I don't know if anyone else realizes that we're still students." Weiss began to reveal her own thoughts on the White-Fang issue, "We just aren't ready to go out and attack a criminal organization."

Blake let out a frustrated groan, "And I guess they'll just wait for us to graduate? Hold off on whatever plan they have in motion for us to be ready to destroy it? None of us know what they're up to, all we know is that they need dust." Blake fired back, "I for one don't want to sit around doing nothing." Blake gestured to the windows, out towards the city of Vale.

"While we are in here arguing about whether or not we should do this they are out there, planning for something, and I don't want to be caught off guard." The other three had gone quiet, Blake had some good points.

"If, _when_ they begin, it won't _matter_ if we're _ready_ or not."

Ruby cut in before Weiss could give another response, "Okay then, all in favor of trying to be the youngest huntresses in history to take down a corrupted protest group and a criminal organization all at once say 'aye'." She decided the group should leave it to a vote, her voice was quite cheerful considering the subject matter.

Yang let out a relieved noise, "I'm all for it!" She pumped her fists in the air with a large grin.

"... I guess." Weiss relented.

Blake just nodded, her vote was already apparent. "You guys were supposed to say 'aye'~" Ruby whined adorably.

"Next time sis," Yang promised.

Blake felt a warm feeling go throughout her body, having a team that was so willing to back her up was something she had forgotten about, "We're in this together then!" Blake smiled, getting affirmative nods from the other girls.

Ruby got very excited at the team's new goal, "We should make a plan... oh no!"

"What is it?" Yang looked at her concerned, "I forgot Remnant!"

"Oh no... whatever shall we do." Weiss didn't sound bothered at _all_ , she melodramatically covered her eyes and leaned back in a chair.

"I need to save it from the vile clutches of our enemies!" Ruby zipped out of the room, rose petals trailing behind her.

Weiss shook her head at Ruby's antics, _"What enemies does she think we have in Beacon?"_ Chalking it up to Ruby being herself, the Glyph user started going over her notes in preparation for the new semester.

When their exalted leader got back she would worry about whatever plan they were coming up with.

 _ _ _ **=================================|EKM|====================================**___

Zooming into the hallway, Ruby didn't have time to notice that there were three people walking down it _and_ push the breaks.

Crashing into one of them and landing on her side with an oomph, the scarf wearing girl swore she saw stars in her vision. "uuuh..." Groaning out as she recovered, Ruby slowly steadied herself and got up. "Sorry.. are you okay?" She asked the green-haired girl, offering her a hand, cheeks turning red in embarrassment.

"Ugh, yeah, just... watch where you're going next time." The stranger took Ruby's hand gladly and rose to stand. "Right... sorry about that."

"Umm, I'm Ruby!" The girl in question tried to clear the awkwardness with enthusiasm, "are you new here?" She hadn't seen these three around before.

The girl she had accidentally knocked over had green hair and darker skin, another girl stood a few feet taller than the first and had long, flowing brunette hair and the only male in the trio had silvery hair.

All three wore a similar outfit, but Ruby couldn't identify it.

"We're visiting from Haven actually, for the festival." The older girl explained with a friendly smile. "Oh! Cool! But, the exchange students have their own dormitory." Ruby replied.

The boy spoke up, a somewhat guilty grin on his face, "Yeah, we were looking but couldn't find them, got turned around."

"I think he means that he lead us in the wrong direction," The green-haired girl clarified.

"Ah, yeah, that still happens to me sometimes. This place is pretty big," Ruby had been lost more times than she cared to admit, thankfully, the frustration tended to attract a certain person, who usually just picked her up by the scruff of her shirt they went from there.

At least he didn't go for her cloak instead...

Pushing past those thoughts, Ruby went to the end of the hall and looked left and right, "Uhh, you're building is over there," Ruby said, pointing east of them.

The brunette student walked past her, "Thanks," She sounded quite thankful and the three Haven students went on their way.

"Oh! Uh, Welcome to Beacon!" She called out.

Just after the three turned the corner Drei walked out of JNPR's room, looking at Ruby annoyed, and sleepily. "Oh, uh... sorry Drei." The Grimm let out a grunt and seemed to shrug before going back to his bed.

* * *

 ** _Aaand here it is._**

 ** _The true start of Volume 2._**

 ** _This is the longest chapter I've done btw, just over 6k words, I'd appreciate some feedback as to whether or not it is too much._**

 ** _Also, new revelations of Drei's strange powers! He gained Jaune's crush on Weiss! He did take care of it during the talk with Jaune, and if you look back, all those pranks he pulled on her might have a different reasoning than him just messing with her._**

 ** _What did ya think about the talk between Jaune and Drei? Drei is more knowledgeable about Jaune than he thinks on a subconscious level._**

 ** _I'm sorta regretting merging 4 chapters into 2, it messed with the reviews, didn't delete them, just put them on the chapters that they might not be appropriate for now._**

 ** _What Red VS Blue reference? I don't see it._**


	21. Movie Night Pt 1

Ren was tackled to the ground with a thud, letting out a pained groan as Nora cheered victoriously. As he laid in the grass and waited for the sky to stop shaking, Ren wondered why _exactly_ they were doing this.

 _"Oh, right. Weaponless Training."_ Pyrrha had suggested trying to further develop hand-to-hand skills in addition to their weapon skills.

It hadn't seemed like a bad idea; if they were disarmed or caught without their weapons having at least some skill in defending themselves without it could be the difference between life and death.

Overall, Ren felt he had the most refined technique among their group but that wasn't saying much, at least compared to two of them.

Nora was very reliant on her weapon and had very little finesse overall while Jaune was literally a beginner from the looks of it.

Pyrrha was skilled, but she obviously relied more on her spear-sword and shield technique than any sort of trained hand to hand style. Not to say she didn't have skill in that area, it just wasn't her focus.

Ren's weapons were little more than rapid-fire pistols with knives on the bottom, one of the reasons he chose them was because it wouldn't change his fighting style all that much in the event an enemy got too close for comfort.

Generally, he fought with finesse rather than strength, dodged attacks rather than blocking or enduring them.

Conserve as much stamina as possible and wait for his opponent to tire out, then go in for the win.

Then it was revealed that they would be sparring with each other.

And Nora chose Ren as her training partner, as usual.

It didn't seem to work against someone as energetic and physically strong as Nora, who was like a mix between the energizing dust bunny and a trained boxer.

Looking to his left, Ren saw Pyrrha and Jaune. The spartan's straight was surprisingly blocked by Jaune, but he was taken down by her sweeping his legs out from under him.

Ren's instincts _screamed_ at him to dodge, rolling away he heard a foot plant into the ground where his head had just been.

Nora had a shocked expression as he got back to his feet, looking at what might've been some serious damage to his head.

One of the rules was that you had five seconds to recover, then, free game.

As his _not_ -girlfriend charged forward, Ren braced himself and grasped her extended arm, flipping her over his shoulder and slamming her into the ground.

Nora let out an oomph but responded by grasping the leg near her head and pushed him off balance.

Clambering to her feet, Nora braced her arms in front of her, blocking an open palm strike from her _not_ -boyfriend, "This is pretty fun." She tried to play off the feeling in her gut, the one telling her that actually making that hit would've been _very_ bad.

"Hmm." Ren's reply was short as he focused on avoiding her retaliation, swerving his body out of the path of her rapid-fisticuffs.

He was forced to step back with every thrown punch as Nora got more and more into it, an absurdly excited smile on her face as she seemed to _gain_ energy.

Their fight was boiling down to his smaller but more controlled aura reserve against her much larger but raw one.

And at the rate they were going, it's gonna be a long sparring session...

 _ **=================================EKM===================================**_

While everyone else was out and about, the peppy leader of team RWBY was seated at her desk in their room, doodling away on a piece of paper.

Together, her team had come up with a rough idea of how they would approach the whole "take down a criminal organization and figure out what's happening" thing and now all they needed to do was hammer it out a little more.

"Shoot," Ruby scowled as she crumpled up her fifth attempt to make a new combat skirt fitted outfit, she had been trying to sketch it up in preparation for the team's newest venture.

New, fashionable clothes seemed like something they needed, and be real, who goes out on super secret spy missions without cool clothes? They could have super spy jetpacks too! Or at least a flower that sprays water... er... _super spy liquid_ on people.

 _Not_ spending the time to do this would be a missed opportunity in anyone's book. Ruby stuck her tongue out as she drew a rough outline of her form once again, trying out a new design for her outfit and coloring it with black and red markers.

They had to be _just_ right.

 _ **=================================EKM===================================**_

There were several questions some Hunters asked about the creatures of Grimm but no hard answers. Where did they come from? Do they eat, and if so, what do they eat? What is their behavior when not attacking humans and faunus?

Most hunters say "who cares they kill us" and then get back to fighting the creatures for survival.

Drei could give them some answers, they didn't need to eat.

When not encountering things other than fellow Grimm they were docile.

And when being stalked by large groups of humans who were curious about the strange Grimm they had been informed about by their headmasters and sworn to secrecy about, they tended to try and get away from the crowd.

Looking with his peripheral vision while turning a corner, Drei saw almost every single student not from Beacon trying to stealthily observe him.

They had been following him for most of the day.

He was getting very uncomfortable.

Crowds were bad.

He had tried going about his morning ignoring them but that only made the large group more willing to creep closer and closer, trying to get a better look at the strange creature.

He was getting annoyed.

He was an ancient Grimm that had been awake for almost a whole day and could _sleep_ for almost the whole day.

Sleep was required.

Looking back he saw the mass of people trying to act casually, inspecting the walls like they were the most interesting thing on the planet. Turning his body to face them and more or less freeze them in place, Drei had a difficult time slowly creeping backward, his legs not capable of moving in that direction easily.

The moment he moved to a split in the hallways, Drei turned to his left and ran down the corridor.

"Crap!" He heard someone shout from behind, the thunderous noise of dozens of students chasing after him echoed throughout the halls.

Unless he put more effort in, they would see which direction he was going to turn next. Looking all around, Drei formulated his brilliant escape strategy.

When the students rounded the corner, there was no Grimm to be found. "Split up! He has to have gone down one of these two hallways!" They seemed _very_ determined to stalk him...

Cinder stopped her two subordinates from tagging along, "Aren't we supposed to be blending in?" Mercury pointed out.

"Yes, but I that's enough for now. Besides, they won't find our wolfish friend." The woman's eyes looked upwards, at the ceiling. Mercury and Emerald followed her gaze and briefly saw a black blur high going the opposite way, leaving behind marks on the roof.

"Impressive," Emerald commented quietly. Fixing that would be a pain for whatever sad sap Ozpin stuck the job with.

His legs must be quite powerful if he made that jump, not even getting into his claws... "Should we follow him?" Emerald asked her superior.

Cinder shook her head, "Not now. For now, we are just going to... observe."

The mass of students came back around the corner, Cinder put on a very convincing curious act, "Did you find him?" She asked.

"Nah, he must've really kicked it into overdrive." A long brown haired student from Vacou told her, adjusting her glasses which were slightly off center.

"Shame, maybe next time." Emerald joined in.

"Still weird that something like that exists," Another student brought up. Mingling in, Cinder, Mercury, and Emerald chatted with their fellow students before classes started for the day.

Drei, meanwhile, had found the perfect place to rest, where none of the transfer students would think to look. He was very glad that Port had gotten a replacement Grimm crate put in his back room, and that nothing else was occupying it at the present time.

Hopefully, no one would think to go looking for him in Port's classroom closet, the students tended to stay away from classrooms while school was out, so for now, he was safe.

 _ **=================================EKM===================================**_

The attempted feint was seen a mile away, Pyrrha could easily see that her opponent's actual strike was coming from her left, not right.

Quickly grabbing and restraining the offending arm, Pyrrha delivered a hard palm strike to Jaune's chest, knocking the air out of the Arc.

Letting go of his limbs, the Spartan swiped his legs out from under him, knocking her team leader to the ground with a solid thud, followed by a startled grunt.

The crimson-haired-girl very nearly grinned when Jaune was instantly back on his feet, ready to go again.

Ever since she had started training with Jaune, it had become evident that he possessed an incredible capacity to grow, in terms of combative ability.

The fact that he didn't even know what an aura was when coming to the school should've been a red flag, but after only two months the blond-haired rookie warrior had made leaps and bounds in his martial prowess.

It continued to astound her how fast Jaune learned to fight. The fact that he was now using feints, despite them not working on her, was impressive.

Of course, he still spent the majority of their sparring session on his butt. The Tournament Champion was just way better than him.

After a few more rounds in which Jaune _almost_ had her put some Vacousian on it at the end, their esteemed leader called a timeout, face red with exertion as he panted like a dog, shaking laying down.

Going over to a nearby cooler, Pyrrha fished out two water bottles and handed him one.

Jaune nearly ripped it out of her hands, gulping down the crisp, cool liquid like he was a man just rescued from the desert.

Taking the moment to check in on how Nora and Ren were doing, Pyrrha noticed the two were having some... issues after several minutes of watching.

Specifically, Ren had made zero aggressive moves in that time and was just avoiding Nora's attacks, which were obviously being pulled. There was a scratch on Ren's cheek and Nora looked very guilty, instead of actually practicing the two were just keeping up the appearance of a sparring session, defeating the whole purpose.

Pyrrha very nearly scowled at them, "If the two of you are done _actually_ practicing, just say so." The words came out harsher than she intended, the two looked at the spartan surprised.

"Sorry Pyr... it's just a bit tough when you're fighting... y'know." Nora skirted around saying all that much as Ren nursed his cheek.

It still stung a little.

The look on their resident Tournament Champion's face implied no sympathy, "Perhaps you should've thought about that when choosing a sparring partner." Nora seemed to deflate, looking at the grass guiltily.

"Hey, Pyrrha, are you okay?" Jaune was a bit surprised, he hadn't ever seen her this _icy_.

"Sorry... I've just been a bit stressed recently, classes are starting up tomorrow and stuff." Pyrrha knew that didn't give her a free pass to snap at somebody, even if it wasn't the only thing causing her frustration.

She really hoped nobody pried further.

"I'm sorry Nora, I shouldn't-" She began, but Nora cut her off.

"Well, you're not really wrong y'know. Ren and I can't go easy on each other just cuz we're together-together now," The orangette actually seemed glad her sparring issues were pointed out.

"Wait... so it's official? When?" Jaune looked over at Ren. Honestly, he had noticed subtle changes over the past week or so in the way the two interacted but didn't feel the need to bring it up.

The more obvious one was that time he woke up and saw the two snuggling on Nora's bed while Drei took over Ren's, and the content expressions on both of their faces.

And there were those times in the hall that Ren had tried to sneakily hold hands with Nora... Though every time that happened their intertwined fingers were suddenly unhooked the moment anyone looked their direction.

Except for the first time, where they were too slow and Jaune saw it.

"A few weeks ago." Was the short explanation from the green-wearing teen. He looked away and nervously grabbed his arm, looks like it was a bit of a private thing still.

"Well, congratulations." Jaune's own struggles getting with someone didn't mean he wasn't happy his friend did.

"Ren!" Nora snapped her head to him as she got into a fighting stance.

"Yes?" He answered worriedly.

"No more holding back." She promised, determination igniting in her eyes.

He didn't say anything in response, instead, Ren just looked at Pyrrha with eyes the size of dinner plates, "Help." He squeaked.

Nora shot forward, Jaune and Pyrrha swore they saw sparks fly off her as Ren visibly shunted his teal aura into his arms, absorbing her attack.

There was a flash of light as Nora's semblance activated, a small explosion of lighting cracked out. Ren put some space between them as he prepared to further defend himself but Nora rubbed the back of her neck, embarrassed, "Hehe... whoops."

She hadn't meant to do that.

Ren just looked at her dumbfounded before he noticed the fire climbing on the purple part of his hair. "Oh! Crud!" Nora ran up and joined him in trying to beat out the flames, Pyrrha and Jaune jumped into action, getting one of their waters and pouring it all over Ren's head.

The quiet teen closed his eyes in annoyance as his head was soaked, slowly opening them, Ren took in a deep breath, "How about we stop for today." He recommended and everyone agreed.

That was enough excitement for one day.

As the four made their way back to Beacon, Ren and Nora made sure to hang back.

"Soooo... have you noticed it too?" Nora wrapped her arms around Ren's shoulders, a small smile on her face.

"Yes," Ren answered simply.

"Should we do anything?"

"Not for now."

Nora pouted, "Then when?"

"When he manages to remain oblivious for too long." Nora seemed content with that answer and the two rejoined their teammates.

Operation: Observation was now commencing.

 _ **=================================EKM===================================**_

Blake was doodling in her notebook as Port lost himself in another speech, the first day of the semester had been a bit relaxed, and she was glad it was like that considering how badly her leader had been badgering them to make new "super cool" outfits to wear while on the lookout for the White Fang and that other criminal group.

The black-haired girl was thankful for Beacon's advanced outfit manufacturers, which were capable of constructing a wide variety of outfits with many different methods of customization.

The first and most important step was just figuring out what she wanted the new attire to look like, then it was a relatively simple process to make the new clothing.

Yang seemed way more into it than her, from the little she looked at Blake saw the brawler's new idea for an outfit bore such little similarity to her current one.

Blake had gone a bit basic in her approach, white v-neck with a black trim on the bottom, which showed off her midriff, and a pair of black pants.

Yang, on the other hand, went all out, using several different colored pens in the process. Black sleeves that ended with bronze bands just above her forearm, a white and creme top over a black shirt with a small opening, meant to show off her chest.

There were what looked like two belts on the sheet, both having gold-colored buckles. Around the drawing's legs was some sort of black material that went a few inches above her knees, ending in her inner thigh which was covered by white stockings.

Blake had to look away before thoughts of redesigning her outfit became too prominent, she had spent a good deal of time on what she already had and was fine with it.

Yang continued to gleefully work on the drawing, _"Just ignore it... just ignore it..."_ Blake repeated as she tried to focus on what Professor Port was saying, hands clasped together while she began twiddling her thumbs.

She didn't need a massive change, just an altered outfit to placate Ruby.

A few seats over, Weiss was openly staring at her scroll's clock, boredom evident as her eyes slowly blinked. Right next to her was Jaune, who despite all previous evidence suggesting otherwise, was leaving her mostly alone.

As for the blond knight, he was thinking about what to do with those tickets to the new Spruce Billis movie, he bought two of them earlier that week; on the one hand he could ask Weiss to go with him, but there was that whole "she's not romantically interested in you" thing happening.

Ren and Nora had apparently planned to go to the mall tonight.

Ruby wasn't as into action movies from what he could gather, she preferred silly movies and shows if what Drei had carved about said anything.

Come to think of it, the Grimm also seemed to prefer such things, and the prospect of going with him was an ultra no-no.

Yang and Blake seemed busy doing something.

Drei was... not a good choice when wanting to go out and about with someone.

That only left Pyrrha, but then again this presented another problem, not that he considers it her fault. Going to the movies with a celebrity would most likely attract a boatload of attention...

Weiss looked at the holographic clock hit 4, signaling the end of Port's class, the teacher was in the middle of a fierce pose, ready to tear into some creature whose tale of defeat the Professor was regaling them with.

"AND I HOISTED THE MONGREL HIGH ABOVE MY HEAD, AND THEN I!" The alarm broke through the retelling. Port was brought back to the present just as he was acting out how he mightily choked an Ursa to death and cleared his voice, tidying up his somewhat disheveled appearance. He could get disturbingly into the tales of his past victories.

"Ahem, right. Well them, I suppose the story of my youth will have to continue next time!" He said boisterously, "Now then, off you go." The students began filing out of the room.

"So, I couldn't help but notice that you didn't ask Weiss to that movie or... anything." Yang had been paying more attention to the class than previously believed.

"Hmm?" Jaune was brought out of his thoughts at his fellow blonde's observation, "Yeah..." Jaune didn't say much more as he gathered his things and left.

Yang kept her gaze on the retreating form of Jaune with a thoughtful expression, had something changed in between today and yesterday she didn't know about?

She just shrugged and met up with Blake on the way to the Fabric Constructor, it was time to make their new outfits!

 _ **=================================EKM===================================**_

Jaune sat on his bed, looking at the two tickets to the newest Spruce Willis movie, Live Free or Stein Hard. It was the latest in the Stein Hard movie series, where Spruce Willis played a former physicist who had for some reason been brought in to take down terrorists.

And now, his daughter had been taken after taking a vacation to Vacou, and he was gonna use all the various skills he had cultivated over the years to find her, and kill them.

Or something like that, Jaune hadn't paid all that much attention but looked like some good mindless fun to relax with.

And Pyrrha did say she was feeling stressed out lately...

Decision made, Jaune got up and joined Pyrrha at her desk, she was currently in the middle of some homework and had a peeved expression, "Hey, Pyr?" Jaune got her attention.

"Whats up?" She asked.

"Umm, so, I was wondering if you'd like to go see the new Spruce Willis movie with me, I got two tickets." Jaune showed them to her.

"Sure, when exactly?"

"Umm, at 8 tonight..." Crap, he hadn't planned this out that well.

"Great, just give me a bit to prepare beforehand," Pyrrha didn't seem to mind... so that's good.

 _"You managed to not flub something up, good job Jaune!"_

Across the room, Nora began jotting something down at record speeds while Ren subtly shifted his arm back over his eyes and pretended to sleep.

Observation would be difficult in the near future.

 _ **=================================EKM===================================**_

Drei was resting underneath Ruby and Weiss' bunk-bed, he was grateful for their willingness to let him hide from the school's students for the time being.

Of course, they did ask that he refrained from peeking on them as they changed into their newly made investigative outfits, the only thing Ruby, Weiss, and Yang got in response was the Grimm raising a brow at them.

They, did in fact, have an audience, but it wasn't him.

Blake had wrapped black ribbons around arms, leading into a pair of wristbands. The last-minute additions looked great in her opinion,"I thought that class would never end," She commented, looking at her somewhat plain outfit, the team's stealthy ninja nodded, satisfied with her choices.

Yang had brought to life the outfit she sketched in class earlier that day and was currently loading dust rounds into her gauntlets in preparation for today's adventure.

Weiss' outfit took on a more suit-like appearance on her torso than the previous one and ended in a popped collar, but otherwise, she hadn't changed her outfit all that much. She was currently ensuring her weapon was in optimal reaching distance in the event that she needed to use it.

She shouldn't have to, but one could never be too careful.

Ruby jumped down from the top bunk and nearly landed on Weiss, her outfit was a bit different from before with a gray long-sleeved shirt tucked underneath what the Grimm was informed was referred to as a pinafore, which was colored black and had two corset-like strings placed vertically on either side of her stomach.

The combat skirt was retained, but it was now red instead of black. Her stockings were also kept but new boots, which were predominantly black with red lacing, and went halfway to her knees.

"Alright guys, today our investigation begins in full!" Ruby proclaimed cheerfully.

"Glad to see we're taking this so seriously." Weiss' voice was dripping with sarcasm.

"Absolutely, we have a plan of action and everything," Yang assured the slightly and Ruby went over everyone's job for tonight Drei's attention turned to the windows.

Well, not the windows per say, the people hiding next to the windows.

They were upset, or was it agitated?The point was, the two of them were obviously having second thoughts about staying outside on what was no doubt a very high up ledge, right next to a team room window inhabited solely by those of the fairer sex.

And one Grimm, but he didn't really count in that way.

Despite his best efforts to not listen in on the latest crazy scheme the members of team RWBY had baked up, Drei found himself subject to it anyways.

From what he heard, Ruby and Weiss were going to some sort of building to check the records of the Schnee company, search for any robberies or fishy records.

Blake was going to go undercover at a White Fang meeting and hopefully find out what they were planning, or at least get some clue.

Yang, on the other hand, was going to the shady part of Beacon, apparently, an "old friend" she had in those parts was the eyes and ears of the underground, but also didn't have that much of a spine.

Ruby looked very pleased with their plan for the night, "Great! When we're all done with our stuff we'll meet up with Yang and compare notes." The younger leader got an affirmative nod from everyone.

"Let's do this!" She shouted, excited.

"Yeah!" A distinctly _male_ voice sounded from the window.

 _"Oh here we go."_ Drei thought, hearing the four girls shuffling in surprise.

Blake looked at the window in alarm as a blonde haired boy with a monkey tail swung in, "Sun?!"

Sun Wukong grinned as he rose to his full height, "How'd you get up there?" Yang asked curiously.

"Ah it's easy, I do it all the time." Sun bragged.

"You do _what_ all the time!" Weiss asked, a scandalous thought entered her mind, Sun Wukong spying on people as they go dressed.

The way the heiress scowled at him must've tipped Sun off about how that could've sounded and he rushed to clear things up, "I climb trees all the time." He explained, gladly shifting his attention to the other people in the room, "So, I take it we're looking for that Torch dude?"

" _We_ are," Blake replied, making it clear that it was only the four of them, not Sun, who were going on this little excursion.

Ruby looked at him apologetically, "Sorry Sun, we just don't want to involve anyone else if we don't have to."

"That's dumb," Sun's quick reply brought Ruby to a halt, "I mean, this affects all of us right? That's why I brought Neptune along."

Weiss' bad mood seemed to _evaporate_ when Neptune's name was mentioned, "Hey! Whose tail is this?!" Neptune's voice came from beneath the window, where team RWBY and Sun saw Drei picking the aforementioned blue haired male up with his tail and depositing him onto the floor, feet first.

"Uh, thanks." Drei made no signs he even heard Neptune, he just went back underneath the bunk-bed. Ruby let out a hum as she began incorporating the newest additions to their little group into the plan.

"Okie Dokie, I'll still go with Weiss; Sun, you'll go with Blake and Neptune will join in on Yang's thing, cuz she doesn't have anyone going with her." She laid the new plan out.

"Why don't you join Yang instead? You're sisters after all," Weiss slumped his head to the ground,

Drei slumped his snout to the ground, _"Be more obvious please."_

"Mmm, but if I went with her who would you go with?" The scythe wielder questioned.

"Well, Neptune I guess."

Ruby giggled as she just pushed a stock-still Neptune over to Yang, "Good one Weiss, c'mon let's go." Ruby grabbed the heiress and moved the two of them out the door.

"But!" Weiss tried to wiggle out of Ruby's hold, however, the red-wearing girl was prepared for such an event and double down, giggling as she more or less dragged the Schnee girl away.

They had a tower to visit.

 _ **=================================EKM===================================**_

By the time Ruby and Weiss finally made it to the Transit System tower, it was ginormous! The tower was easily hundreds of feet tall, dwarfing over the nearby trees and making them _tiny_ in comparison.

The actual entrance was just a circular glass wall, not all that interesting to look at.

The massive stone tower, on the other hand, was mostly cylindrical but had some indents in it, holding banners on all four corners just above the four entrances. Each lime-green banner split in three, each part becoming a circle towards the bottom before becoming a line and ending one again, there was one of these on both corners.

Weiss said there were two more banners on the other side.

The building was an off-white color and at the top was a holographic display that was active at all times, showing the structure was active and transmitting.

There were stone archways on either side of the Tower itself, with a solid stone column bracing the primary structure, though it was more of an aesthetic choice than anything.

Ruby's mouth dropped as she took in the sight. "I forgot how massive it was!" She said in awe.

"You should see the one in Atlas," Weiss said in response.

"That was the first one, right?" Ruby didn't know for sure.

"Correct," the Heiress informed her, "Atlas developed them to allow communication between the four Kingdoms, it was their gift after the Great War came to an end."

Ruby looked at her teammate, amused by how much of an explanation she gave. Putting on a noblewoman act, Ruby began a teasing imitation of her teammate, "Oh, look at me, I'm Weiss and know facts! I'm also rich!"

Weiss gave her a frown as Ruby tried to muffle a snort behind her hand. "Don't be such a pest, the only reason we're here in the first place is because you like the tower so much. It would've been way less of a hassle to just call from the library."

"I know, but just look at it! It's sooo cool!" Ruby began pulling out her scroll to take a picture, but as excited as she was the device slipped out of her hands and was launched several yards, bouncing to a stop next to a familiar face's feet.

Looking down at the suddenly appearing scroll, Penny picked it up before looking for its owner, the obvious distressed Ruby being the most likely candidate, "I think you dropped this," Ruby's eyes got wider as she realized who she was standing with.

"Penny?" The orangette blinked,

"Uuuuh."

Ruby gave her a worried look, "Where have you been? Ever since that night at the docks I've been worried sick, you just disappeared on us!"

Penny took a few steps back, "Sorry, I think you've got me confused with someone else," Suddenly the orange haired girl hiccuped and shoved the scroll in Ruby's hands, making her way in the opposite direction.

Weiss walked up next to Ruby, "What's going on?"

Ruby frowned, "Dunno, but I'm gonna find out," Without explaining further, Ruby ran after the retreating orangette's form.

"Wait!" Weiss reached out to her teammate but lowered her hands in exasperation once it became clear she wouldn't be returning anytime soon.

Letting out a heavy sigh, the Heiress just decided to ignore the antics of her childish leader and started moving toward the Transit System's entrance, "I'll make that call now, deal with her later." She assured herself.

It was times like these that made her wonder what Ozpin saw in Ruby, but then some insane event like what happened at the docks goes down and proves that she's got skills by just surviving.

Weiss was hoping she get some sort of reminder soon, or else she might just have a meltdown.

 _ **=================================EKM===================================**_

 ** _Weiss & Chocolate Cake VS Doctor Fate and Temptation._**

 ** _Drei is having some stalker issues, thankfully there are plenty of places to hide out._**

 ** _That Spruce Willis movie title and premise is utter nonsense._**

 ** _I'm really not that subtle in regards to certain things._**

 ** _Also, just a heads up, there won't be another chapter till April due to a bunch of life stuff happening soon, so I apologize in advance._**

 ** _Hope you enjoyed this though, and check out my other stories if they tickle your fancy ^.^_**

 ** _Have a good day!_**


	22. Serious Business (April Fools)

How to Make A Grimm with 21 Easy Ingredients

* * *

Eggs (20)

Ketchup (5 Bottles)

Pancake Mix (Just Add Water, 20 Boxes)

Burger Patties (About 12)

Hot Dogs (Five 8 Packs)

Milk (10 Gallons)

Apple Juice (A teaspoon)

Ice Cream (Milk Chocolate)

Bottled Water (For you)

Hot Dog Buns (Just one)

Sandwich Meat (Maybe 3 slices)

Sandwich Cheese (American)

Bread (Wheat)

Apples (Two or three)

Ranch Dressing (Go nuts)

Shredded Cheese (Half a package)

Tortilla (Two of em)

Diet Mountain Dew (Might not exist)

Soap (Whatever smells fruity)

Detergent (Add after everything else)

Pizzas (Maybe two or three Ultimate Meats)

And a better April Fool's joke next year

(Actual Chapter coming soon)


	23. Movie Night Pt 2

_I did say I'd get another actually chapter up in April, but don't ever trust me on the 1st._

* * *

"Pyrrha!" Nora's voice bounced around the halls, "Jaune?!" She didn't get any reply. had just finished the homework they had been given, but now she didn't know where anyone was.

Nora had just finished the homework they had been given, but now she didn't know where anyone was.

The entirety of Team RWBY hadn't answered their scrolls, Jaune and Pyrrha were doing the same thing, and Ren was probably reading or something so he wouldn't notice her messages.

She knew from the two other members of their team would be going to a movie, Stein Hard or something like that, but it didn't start until eight.

Last she checked it was almost 6:00 P.M and the lines couldn't be so long that they needed to go at least an hour and a half early just to make sure they got in.

Nora had gone over all the usual spots the two frequented and so far zilch. Unless they had a super secret hiding spot that was only used in case of emergency, but that's ridiculous.

"Ruby?" Nora peeking into the weapon workshop, sometimes she got super into her work there and didn't respond to anyone, but there wasn't anyone she knew there, some gave her an inquiring look.

"You fellas wouldn't happen to have seen Ruby Rose recently, would ya?" They all shook their heads.

"Darn."

Nora's next stop was the Gymnasium, Yang's second favorite place in the academy.

"Yang!" The brawler tended to appear here, beating the sand out of a training bag if she wasn't in class, with her teammates, or in their room.

Except for today, it seems.

Nora frowned, strike 4 of 6, she saw some movement above her, looking up revealed Drei in the rafters once again.

How comfortable could those things possibly _be_? She'd have to try one day.

"Hey, Drei." The Grimm rose his head to look at her, glowing red eyes opening and tilting his head. "Have you seen Yang around?" He laid his head back down.

So that's a no.

The walk to Blake and Weiss' usual spot was almost a death march, almost because Ren could usually be found at this location as well.

The Library.

Yuck.

Nora wasn't dumb by any stretch of the word, inattentive maybe, it's just that she'd rather spend her day learning how to fight Grimm and actually doing stuff.

Sitting down and reading a book for hours on end just wasn't fun, and if the black and gray creatures managed to overwhelm the Kingdoms then their politics wouldn't be able to keep the Grimm at bay.

Though... having allies was great, but that's more Ren or Pyrrha's specialty.

Hers was to smash bad guys in new, innovative ways.

"Weiss, Blake, Ren." She whisper-yelled after creeping into the book-filled room but got no reply. Roaming the aisles revealed nobody she knew, but there was a cool book with an archway on the front.

 _"Arc: A Histor-"_

"Nora," Ren's soft tone distracted her from the hardback.

The girl looked at him with a grin "Hey, have you seen Jaune or Pyrrha or Ruby or Yang or-"

"No." He said pre-emptively.

"Darn, I haven't seen them for..." She trailed off, narrowing her eyes, how long had it been?

"Two hours."

Had it really been that long?! "Shoot! Operation Observation has a huuuge gap in its oversight now!" Nora exclaimed, worry coming off her in waves.

"Shhh!" A tall, green-haired man with blue eyes and nearly white skin popped up from out of _nowhere_.

"GAH!" Nora screamed, easily reached flew ten feet in the air while the newcomer and Ren waited for her to come back down.

"Sorry." Nora apologized after landing, He folded his arms before disappearing.

Mr. Cawthon's Semblance was awesome when he wasn't using it to shush people, a realistic visual replica of his body that he could send over an area at least the size of the library.

Ren put back a book he had been reading, "Jaune and Pyrrha are probably just going early, making sure they have good seats."

Nora frowned, "But we _are_ going to... do some recon on them, right?"

"Observation." Ren corrected with a smile.

"Yay!"

"SHH!"

 _ **=================================EKM=================================**_

 _ **Vale**_

"Hey, wait up Penny!" Ruby called ahead as she raced up to greet the somewhat pale girl. Penny seemed to not hear her and kept at the pace she had set.

Frowning, Ruby disappeared in a cloud of roses and reappeared right next to the other girl, undeniably getting her attention.

"Penny where have you _been_? We've been worried about you ever since that night at the docks!" The girl in question raised an eyebrow.

"I'm sorry, I think you have the wrong person."

"Huh?" Ruby blinked in confusion as Penny began to walk past her, "Are you alright?" She tried to get a response from the seemingly amnesiac girl.

"Penny?" The orangette kept walking, "Penny _please_ talk to me. I'm your friend, aren't I?" The other girl almost screeched to a halt, turning on a dime she backpedaled to the raven haired girl.

"It's not safe here," Penny whispered to her, Ruby's silver eyes looked even more confused while Penny's darted around, taking a moment to examine her surroundings, Ruby didn't find anything out of the ordinary.

It was just a typical evening in Vale.

She jumped when Penny's hand clasped around her arm and tugged on it gently, evidently wanting Ruby to follow her "Where are we going?" She inquired while walking with the somewhat strange girl.

"Somewhere safe of course," Penny sounded more upbeat than a second ago.

The two marched in silence, leaving the premises of the CCT.

As they began going down the sidewalk Penny stepped up the pace, almost tripping the unprepared Ruby in the process. The young leader looked back at the tower, _"I hope Weiss is doing okay."_

 _ **=================================EKM=================================**_

Each CCT lobby had the same general aesthetic, circular and predominantly dark gray with a glow coming from varying areas around the room representing the Kingdom it was located in.

For Vale, this meant Green.

There was also a massive pillar in the middle of the room, it also had a walkway leading to six terminals for usage within the Kingdom. It too had a green light coming from the floor around it.

Some people thought the lights might be radioactive, but they were just decorative.

Weiss made a beeline for the elevator, she couldn't get anything done on the ground floor. The elevator doors slid open upon detecting her approach, "Hello, Welcome to the CCT, how can I help you?" A computerized voice inquired politely.

"I'd like to go to the communication room."

The response took a few seconds.

"I'd be happy to help, could you place your scroll on the terminal to verify your ID?" Weiss looked to the right of the doors as a panel slid open and held her scroll on it.

"Thank you, Ms. Weiss." The doors shut and the elevator began climbing the building.

It wasn't long before the elevator stopped and the doors opened, revealing a once again gray room, this time with several rows of computer screens that were glowing green.

Weiss strode to the front desk, where a holographic woman was seated, "Welcome to the Beacon Cross Continental Transit System, how may I help you?" The same feminine computer voice from before asked with a smile.

"I'd like to place at call to Schnee World Headquarters in Atlas."

"Terminal Three has been allocated for you, please make your way there and we'll get you started." It said with a smile.

"Thank you," Weiss made her way towards the cubicle, passing a few other students on their own calls before reaching it.

The green screen faded, revealing a woman in her mid-20s with a snowflake, the symbol of the Schnee family, rotating gently behind her.

She was apparently reading something because she wasn't looking directly at Weiss when the video call connected.

"Thank you for call Schnee..." The woman's practiced speech trailed off when she looked up, "Oh! Ms. Schnee, Good day, would you like me to patch you through to anyone?"

Weiss put on a pleasant, approachable expression, "No thank you, I was actually wondering if you could send me some files. I've compiled a short list." She placed her scroll in an open slot on the keyboard, the woman on the other side of the call looked at the list as it came in.

"Umm, there are some sensitive documents on this list Ms. Schnee..." The woman said nervously, "May I ask what you need them for?"

"A school project, I'll be very careful with them I assure you."

"O..okay. I'm sending the data to you now."

Weiss' scroll let out three soft beeps as the transfer finalized.

"Thank you very much."

"Are you sure you don't want me to connect you to your father? Or maybe your sister?" The woman asked again, just to make sure.

Weiss nearly lost her pleasant facade, "I'm good, thank you."

"Alright then, have a good day Ms. Schnee."

The call disconnected, revealing to Weiss a scowling face in the monitor's reflection.

 _ **=================================EKM=================================**_

When Penny finally stopped running the two girls were near some alleyway, "I think we're good now." Penny turned to face Ruby with a smile.

"Great, so... do you know anything about the people we encountered down at the docks?"

"I don't know anything about those people Ruby, sorry." Penny apologized, it really seems important to her...

Ruby frowned, "I see, but, where did you go? We looked around for you after everything calmed down and you just vanished, were you kidnapped or something?" Ruby's eyes widened, "Is that why you were so weird earlier?"

"What? No! Nothing like that, it's just... I've never been to another Kingdom until a few weeks ago and my father asked me to not go too far from our residence. He worries about me, a lot."

Ruby grinned, sounded a lot like dad, "I know whatcha mean, trust me." Penny let out a sigh of relief, "But why not tell us you were okay? We were _really_ worried about you." Some more than others, Drei of all individuals seemed to dislike her but wouldn't tell anyone why.

He tended to leave the room when she came up in conversation.

She didn't know what his problem was; when asked he just wrote that she felt off, different.

"I... was asked not to."

"Was your dad that upset?"

"No, it wasn't him-" Penny was cut off by a megaphone turning on some distance from the two, around the corner.

Ruby decided to investigate, and witnessed the beginning of a video showing Atlesean Knights with James Ironwood, leader of Atlas, standing before them.

There were two large, metallic cases with a sword and shield plastered on the front.

The video went on to show the new and improved Atleasean Knights, but Penny wasn't focusing on that.

She was focusing on the guards who were looking in her direction, "Umm, Ruby?" She tried to get the other girl's attention.

Looking at her revealed the girl almost _panting_ over the weaponry on display.

The guard was now radioing his friends.

"Ruby, we should go somewhere else." Penny tried to warn her friend.

When two of the guards made a break for her Penny ran full sprint in the opposite direction.

 _That_ managed to snap Ruby out of her trance, "Wha? Penny where are you going!" She shouted to her retreating friend, looking back to the video also revealed several guards running in their direction.

"She went down the alley! Get her!"

In a flash of petals, Ruby was next to Penny. "I got you!" She grabbed the other girl around the waist and disappeared in another burst of roses, "Huuuuuuhhh!" Ruby grunted, trying to sustain her semblance.

Penny was _way_ heavier than she looked.

Without meaning to, Ruby stopped speeding, collapsing in the middle of a back alley street with Penny.

"BEEP BEEP" The silver eyes of the young huntress were filled by a bright light, ears with the sound of a horn. She only had time to suck in a breath and close the silver orbs.

Ruby flinched at the loud crunch.

 _"Am I dead, Am I dead, Am I dead, Am I-"_ She kept repeating, is this what death was like? Just like closing your eyes? Better than what it could be she supposed.

"Ma'am are you okay?!" She heard a man ask, she could just hear his fear and worry.

"Yes, are you okay?" Penny's voice sounded like it was above her... in front of her.

Wasn't that where the car was?

Daring to open her eyes, Ruby saw Penny, standing in front of the delivery truck.

It had a huge dent where Penny's hands were.

"Penny?" The girl down at her hands before running away.

"Penny wait!" She chased after the fleeing girl, finding her in a crossroad looking in three directions uncertainly. "Penny, are you okay? How'd you do that? What are you running from? What's going on?" That was the question she really needed to be answered.

"I can't! Everything's fine," Penny hiccuped out of _nowhere_ , "I don't wanna talk about it," Another hiccup.

"Penny, whatever's bothering you, you can tell me."

"Nononono, I can't! You won't understand!"

"I can, trust me," Ruby assured her, she was friends with a Grimm, nothing could surprise her anymore.

Penny seemed to teleport in front of her, "You're my friend right? Nothing will change that? You _promise_ you're my friend?!"

Whatever this was about had put Penny in super freak-out mode, "Penny... I'm your friend."

Looking down at her hands, the strange girl took in a deep breath, "I'm... not a real girl Ruby."

 _"What?"_ Penny showed her hands to Ruby, the hands that had stopped a mac truck.

The skin had been shredded, on anyone else this would've caused an ocean of crimson to spill. But for Penny, all it did was reveal the gray, metallic subdermal layer underneath.

Ruby's jaw dropped.

"Oh..."

Looks like she was wrong, _this_ surprised her.

"I... um..." She didn't know where to start.

"Most girls are born, I was built." Penny sounded so small... "I'm the world's first synthetic being capable of generating an aura." Her eyes looked down, "I'm not real."

Ruby stood silent, Drei's words made sense now.

Her eyes widened in understanding, _"He always said she felt different or strange or off, that must be his Grimm senses feeling her emotions! And if he can feel those then she has an aura, and if she has an aura then she has a soul, and if she has a soul."_

"Penny, you _are_ real." Ruby said firmly, "You have an aura and emotions and stuff like that, you _have_ to have a soul. Drei wouldn't say you were felt _strange_ if there wasn't anything to _feel_."

Ruby closed her eyes, doing that thing hunters were taught, sensing auras. It was harder for someone so energetic as Ruby, but she could see it.

Faint green was in front of her, an aura.

A soul.

"I can feel it, you aren't like those things back there," Ruby told her, opening her eyes.

"Thank you!" Penny pulled her into a squeezing hug. "You're the best friend anyone could have!" She exclaimed.

"Meep!" Ruby grunted as the other girl applied pressure, "I can see why your father would want to protect such a delicate flower." She groaned out.

Ruby let out a relieved gasp when Penny released her, "Oh he's the best! My father's the one who built me... well... with some help from Mr. Ironwood."

"Wait, the general? Why are those soldiers after you if he helped bring you to life?"

"Well, they like to protect me too."

"From what? You're more than capable of handling yourself!" Ruby scoffed at the very thought, if they had seen her at the docks...

"I guess they don't think I'm ready yet, it's my job to save the world but I still have a whole bunch I need to learn, that's why they let me come for the Vrytal Festival, to see every Kingdom and find out what I'm capable of."

"Wait, protect the world from what?"

"Mr. Ironwood thinks-"

"I think I heard her over here!"

"Uh-oh," Penny cut herself off short and grabbed Ruby, picking her up.

"Hey!" Ruby tried to flail out of her grasp. "What are you doing?!" As she saw a garbage bin get closer and closer fear, true fear overtook her.

She didn't want to get dirty!

"I don't want you to get in trouble Ruby. They aren't bad guys, trust me." Penny set her in the open bin.

"Please don't tell anyone my secret," Penny had a grave look on her face, like the fate of the world rested on her secret being kept.

"Of course." Ruby promised.

"Great!" Penny closed the lid with a smile.

Ruby heard the guards catch up to Penny, who covered for her with a loud hiccup.

 _"I'd hate not being allowed to walk around town."_ Ruby listened to the retreating figures as they got further and further away.

Something nudged her shoe.

It was a rat.

"AHH!"

 _ **=================================EKM=================================**_

Walking the streets of Vale were two individuals that the populous would never, in their wildest imagination, think would be together.

One was a blonde haired male that no-one really knew, Jaune Arc, though not many people knew his last name in the first place around the city.

Last semester the hunter-in-training hadn't even had his aura unlocked, much less any real fighting experience. But he had been chosen to be a team leader for some reason.

The other was a redhead in spartan attire that couldn't go five feet without somebody looking at her with awe, she had won quite a few combat tournaments despite her young age.

Her name was Pyrrha Nikos, the person everybody knew, or at least they thought they did. They knew her as a skilled warrior and the face on a cereal box, not a person.

The two were on their way to a new movie that just came out, Jaune had bought two tickets weeks ago but had second thoughts about who to give them to.

Pyrrha had been all for it when he asked if she would like to go with him.

Ever since leaving Beacon the two had been walking in silence, at first it had been relatively comfortable, but it had started to get incredibly awkward for Jaune.

"So..." He began, "Have you noticed anything off about Ren and Nora?" He asked out of the blue.

Pyrrha narrowed her eyes, "Now that you mention it... yeah. I mean, you mean something besides them being together now, right?"

Jaune nodded, "Yeah, they've been... really weird when we're near each other."

"Almost like they're watching for something" Pyrrha agreed.

"Is it something on our faces?"

Pyrrha laughed, "I don't think so,"

 _"Oh_ gods _he's oblivious."_ Pyrrha thought, keeping up her smile.

The two passed some girls seated at an outside restaurant.

"Oh my God is that Pyrrha Nikos?" One tried to whisper.

"Totally, but who's the guy with her?" The second asked.

"Dunno, don't recognize him." The third barely glanced at the two.

"Think he's her friend, or her _friend_?" He's too oblivious.

"What like a boy toy?" Yuck.

"Or a boyfriend you _perv_." Thank you.

"He must have to have mad skills to attract _Spartan Girl_ of all people." She didn't care about how talented or skilled someone was...

"Or do you think she likes being with someone weaker than her?" What?

"How about someone who didn't gush about her fighting prowess like a star struck fool," That third girl hit it on the nail.

Pyrrha's smile was now _very_ strained, _this_ is why she hated going outside Beacon.

She had people who took the time to know her, not a bunch of fans looking at her like she was seated on the clouds above.

"Hey, you alright?" Jaune could see her discomfort from a mile away.

"Of course, wanna take the fast way?" Pyrrha gestured to the rooftops.

Jaune looked taken aback, but seeing how upset she was, "Sure."

The gaggle of fans looked on in awe as the two cleared the roofs, landing on top of a store across the street.

"And you drove them away, good job." The third girl went back to her drink. She really needed it, her friends could gossip like no tomorrow.

 _ **=================================EKM=================================**_

"Well that was a huge waste of time," Yang said cheerily as she and Neptune walked out of the bar.

"How does a crime boss not know _anything_ about the people he's dealing with, isn't there a rule against that in the criminal handbook somewhere?" Neptune was more shocked by that than anything.

"He's more of a go-between type of guy than anything," The brawler got back on her bike with the blue-haired boy in tow.

"So did you get those two girls' number?" Yang asked the moment Neptune, somewhat uncomfortably, wrapped his arms around her waist.

He thought she drove like a maniac, the whimp.

"No."

"After all your hard work and smooth talk? Dang." The one pick-up line that was met with disdain...

"Please stop." Neptune seemed to be in a funk, even if he had gotten their number his scroll had been forgotten back at Beacon.

"Ooh, a sore spot. Used to girls fawning over you the moment you say hi?" She teased.

"It's just a bad time, I bet if I wasn't here to get information and beat up their boss it would've gone down differently," Neptune sounded very sure of his ability to woo others.

Yang let out a laugh just loud enough for him to hear before starting up her bike.

 _"Blake better be having more luck than us."_

 _ **=================================EKM=================================**_

"Stop them!" Roman Torchwick shouted as the now found out Blake and Sun hauled their behinds out of the White Fang hideout.

Just as they burst through a window the two spies heard the Atlesian Paladin mecha Roman _somehow_ got his hands on beginning its startup sequence.

 _"That's not good,"_ Blake and Sun shunted aura into their legs to go faster, Sun took a second to look behind them and saw the wall blast apart, revealing the Paladin already in pursuit.

"We might have a mech following us!" Sun helpfully supplied as they raced from rooftop to rooftop, mech in hot pursuit on the streets below. "Got anyone you can call for backup or something?!"

"On it!" Blake pulled out her scroll.

* * *

Weiss exited the CCT tower, just about to put away her scroll when it beeped.

The caller was Blake, _"Did something happen?"_

Opening it showed the black-haired girl's face, "Everyone if you can hear me we need-" an explosion cut her next words off.

"Help!" Sun exclaimed

"Morons," Weiss whispered as she put her scroll away and ran outside, frown replaced with a small smile.

This was going to be _fun_.

* * *

"Big robo! Big Robo!" Ruby adopted a great big grin.

"No way I'm missing this!" She abandoned the boarded up bin.

* * *

"AHHHHHHHHHH!" Yang was glaring at her scroll with crimson eyes as Sun kept screaming.

"Sounds like they need some help," Neptune was much more subdued about the affair.

"Where are you guys?" Yang asked once Sun stopped.

"Back and to your left!" Blake supplied.

Neptune was almost thrown off the bike as Yang hit the breaks, swerving on her front tire and turning 180 degrees, racing toward their teammates.

Two figures appeared over the street beneath them, followed by a several story tall mecha.

"I think that's them,"

"Hold on," Yang warned.

Neptune grabbed her tight, what was she doing that warranted a _hold on_ over all her other craziness?!

* * *

Drei found his way back to Team RWBY's room after the unusual position he had to stay in on the rafters got too uncomfortable.

That, and Nora found him easy enough, he didn't want to be discovered by the droves of transfer students that spent way too much time stalking the anomaly.

Drei narrowed his eyes when he heard a beeping sound nearby, he had just gotten comfy too.

Growling, the wolf-grimm searched for the annoyance and found one of those scrolls used by the students draped across the window.

Tapping it with a paw revealed Blake and Sun running from... something.

"Big robot! Like, really big! And Roman's inside it but not like it ate him more like he's piloting it!" Sun hastily explained.

Drei let out a long, frustrated sigh. It seems every single time those four go to Vale something inevitably explodes. Exiting through the window, the Grimm began his journey.

 _"Those four can't be trusted outside, ever."_

* * *

 **Admit it, if you had to go help your friends when they got into city spanning fights over and over again you'd consider locking them in their rooms forever.**


	24. Stuff Like That Only Happens In Movies

_Hurrah! I got two RWBY chapters out in a month!_

* * *

"Theatre four of your right," Jaune thanked the man as he and Pyrrha tried to ignore his awestruck gaze while they went to the movie. The young Arc was carrying a large bag of popcorn while Pyrrha took care of the drinks.

"Think it'll be any good?" Jaune asked as they took their seats.

"Hope so, Stein Hard is my favorite action series," Pyrrha admitted.

"Really?"

"Yeah, Spruce Willis is amazing." Jaune took a bite out of the popcorn situated between them.

Jaune took a bite out of the popcorn situated between them, "He's pretty good a beating guys up for sure." In Jaune's opinion the movies were okay. The action was great of course, but Spruce could get a bit gravely voiced at times and the plots were generally odd.

Extremely fun to watch, you'd find a million flaws in the plot if you looked for them.

A popcorn flick, if you will.

"Thanks for bringing me," Jaune turned to meet Pyrrha's eyes, she looked genuinely thankful for the experience.

"-uh, no problem," The movie started.

" **In a world where bad guys are jerks** -"

 ** _=================================|EKM|====================================_**

One might be inclined to believe the trip from Beacon Academy to Vale was an easy one, and you'd be right for having this belief. As long as you happened to _not_ be an anomaly among creatures that only bring death, destruction, and despair to the world.

There were a few precautions Drei took when entering Vale, avoiding detection was the overreaching goal for the Wolf-Grimm. Sticking to rooftops, avoiding street cameras, and holding in position if there were too many people around. He didn't want to make the jump from one building to another if the risk of being seen by dozens of people was too high.

He had gotten a short way into the city by the time the thought of getting assistance from others crossed him, growling softly as the wind whipped through his fur and his paws padded along the rooftops.

Atop one of the taller buildings overlooking the city, he let out a bemoaned groan, the Grimm was tempted to cover his eyes with his tail once he saw a multi-story robotic entity chasing after Blake and Sun on the highway.

There was also a motorbike in pursuit.

Considering the helmet and general design of the vehicle was yellow with fire patterns and the familiar outfit of the second person sitting on the vehicle it was most likely Yang and Neptune.

There were also a great many cars on the highway.

Drei could feel _**panic**_ and **_fear_** and _**worry**_ scattered throughout as the giant mecha chased after the hunters, he could see scared civilians rushing out of their vehicles.

It was only getting more **_annoying_** as the seconds passed. Drei's hackles were rising as the wave continued.

The options before him were both bad in his opinion. He could let things proceed, preventing a massive breach in his secrecy and causing the general panic to continue increasing due to the robot's destruction of the city, thus increasing the annoyance of negative emotional white noise.

He would have to trust RWBY to deal with the problem, the very group that had flubbed it in the first place and called for reinforcements.

His other option was to get seriously involved and cause the citizens to erupt into a terrified frenzy when a creature of Grimm made itself known, somehow having outfoxed every single state of the art defense and the hunters themselves.

 _"Their presuppositions about my kind are becoming a hassle to deal with,"_ Drei scrunched his face, Blake and Sun were thankfully guiding the giant robot on a route that will minimize damage as much as possible, allowing for the civilians to make themselves scarce from the highway.

Drei saw a distinct red and black figure in the distance, on the other side of the highway, but it would take her some time to reach the current chaos, and he'd prefer as few civilians around as possible.

In the meantime, Yang had begun to formulate an attack strategy as she got closer to the hijacked Paladin.

"Neptune, think you can scratch that thing?" Her passenger nodded as he prepared his personal weapon.

Its compact form looked like a silver rectangle, barely worth mentioning, but with the push of a button, it extended out into a staff with a large knife on the end.

Yang recognized it as a Guandao, so apparently some of Ruby's craziness had sunk in.

"Alright, ready?" Yang yelled over the winds.

"What am I doing again?" Neptune hadn't actually figured out what she wanted from him.

The brawler pressed a big red button at the center of her bike, in between the handles.

Neptune had just enough time to give her a betrayed look before being shot off the bike, launched by the spring loaded mechanism hiding beneath his seat.

"AHHHHHHHHHHH!" Neptune screamed as he shot toward the mecha, hands tightly grasping his weapon as he prepared to gouge a hole in its side.

Neptune felt the rush of wind as he rocketed to the mech, his eyes narrowed as he took aim.

Before he could get close the Mech turned around and grabbed the weapon tossing it away.

The blue-haired teen crashing right into Sun -

"Watch it!"

" _You_ watch it!"

\- and they were sent tumbling over the side.

Yang pursed her lips as they went over, _"Well, the drop wasn't that far, they'll be fine,"_ Yang assured herself before metaphorically hitting the gas, leaving those two to their fate and continuing the chase.

Blake heard something flying through the air and slid, barely avoiding a van smashing into her.

 _"Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap!"_ Blake scrambled to her feet as Roman closed in, the gigantic machine was swerving around a corner end of the street, looming like a titan.

A billowing white outfit appeared just in front of her as Weiss slammed Myrtenaster in the ground, the air got colder as she used Ice Dust.

The road froze before them and the machine couldn't find any traction, sliding into the far wall and crashing through it.

Blake let out a sigh of relief as the mechanical exoskeleton was sent tumbling to the ground.

"Thanks," Weiss nodded at the recovering Faunus as Yang drove up.

"Does anyone else feel like that was super easy?" Yang slipped off her motorcycle with a frown. The robot was just thrown off the highway, not very fun, she wanted a fight.

Something moving below them caught Blake's attention, ears and bow twitched in unison.

Beneath their feet the ground splintered as a giant metal hand grabbed the railing and pulled.

The three huntresses hit the ground with a thud.

"Did you really think you'd get rid of me that easily?" Roman's voice taunted them, "Now that I don't have to deal with those White Fang idiots I can take care of you myself girly."

Blake narrowed her eyes at the machine as she and the others got behind some of the rubble. Looking to her right she saw Yang and Weiss ready to fight, the brawler was even smiling while the heiress seemed more focused, determined.

 _"Glad we're all on the same page,"_ Blake thought as she readied Gamble Shroud.

"Hold up!" Blake jerked her head at the new voice, it sounded like Ruby. A gust of wind heralded her arrival as she materialized behind a large chunk of road to Blake's left. "Sorry I'm late," Ruby sheepishly rubbed the back of her head.

"And another annoyance makes her appearance," Roman's loudspeaker carried, busily hitting buttons as he began the aiming system's boot up.

"Party's not started yet," Yang grinned as she smashed Ember Celica together, eager to trash this robot.

"How should we go about this?" Weiss deferred to their leader. "The Atlesian Paladin has rocket launchers on its back, two energy guns on its side, and backup high-caliber rapid fire cannons on the slower, stronger energy guns. Its armor is also incredibly thick and it has close combat capabilities," Weiss informed the others.

"How do you know so much about it?" Ruby asked as she briefly glimpsed around their cover, looking over the stationary machine for any possible weak points, the joints were obvious but getting to them would be difficult.

"My father's company was involved in the construction process," Weiss replied, Ruby considered what she could help out with during this fight. Weiss was a more technical fighter, using finesse and strategy to overwhelm opponents or assist her allies with dust and glyphs.

She did not have the brute force to punch through the Paladin's armor.

"Why don't we just hit it really hard and see how that works?" Yang suggested, Ruby looked at Ember Cecilia. Yang could damage the Paladin.

That left the matter of getting close enough to it.

"Because its guns won't let us get in close enough," Blake countered.

Unless there was a distraction.

"Ladybug Annoyance, Runic Light Fire," Ruby ordered.

"Roger dodger," Yang loved her and Weiss' part of the plan, though, activating her semblance was always nerve wracking for Weiss.

"Sorry about the wait!" Roman cackled as the machine wound up, "Let's get this started!" He laughed as RWBY heard gun barrels spinning up.

"Break!" Blake and Ruby sprang from their cover.

Roman's weapon systems locked on and let loose, Ruby disappeared into petals while Blake split in two, confusing the left cannon's targeting.

Bullet holes tore through the office space behind them, destroying the closed sign as the weapons tracked Blake and Ruby.

Blake's clone stood still, easy pickings.

"Target the one that's moving you dumb machine!" Roman roared as the robot wasted time on it.

"How ya doin?" Ruby had a cheeky grin on her face as she landed on Roman's cockpit.

"Little pest!" Two mechanical arms clasped together to try and grab her but the girl was too quick and hopped off.

The twin cannon's sensors detected two more threats near the damaged building and let loose, chewing through the walls while Blake flipped around.

"You really can't aim can you?" Blake clicked her tongue in disappointment, Ruby grabbed her and moved just before the energy burst was fired.

A brilliant blue fireball devastated the former lobby, Ruby's body went cold when she saw the destruction while Blake went paler than Weiss.

"This is gonna be tougher than I thought," Ruby and Blake ran in opposite directions as Roman reacquired them, barely avoiding a stream of bullets.

He let loose another burst of blue energy at Blake and the acrobatic teen barely managed to flip over it.

In a moment that seemed to last far longer than it should, Blake felt heat washing over her and the bright blue light hurt her eyes as the shot rocketed down the street and took out a neon sign.

It took several uses of her semblance for Ruby to keep ahead of the game, she could only hope Yang and Weiss were almost ready.

"Ready?" Yang had been waiting as Weiss moved her hands rapidly, forming symbols in the air.

"Yes," Runic symbols flashed into existence around Yang, she saw Weiss' eyes narrow in concentration just before she felt like a cloud.

Weiss had used a gravity glyph to adjust Yang's weight, making her much lighter than normal.

"Gotcha!" Roman laughed as he caught the two annoyances and threw them over to their teammates.

"Take this!" The Paladin's rockets let loose, half of its missiles headed straight for team RWBY.

"Crap!" Ruby cursed, struggling to her feet.

"Get behind me!" Weiss shouted while making gestures with her hands, creating another glyph to protect them.

The rockets exploded, shattering the barrier and throwing the four back.

Ruby smashed into a pillar holding up the highway with a groan, her vision was blurry but she could just make out her teammates. They had all landed nearby.

"No mutt to save you this time," She could barely hear Roman over the ringing in her ears.

"Later girlies," Ruby picked up her scythe, she saw Roman preparing to let loose another round of missiles.

Her scythe became a sniper, Ruby took aim as the Paladin fired five more rockets.

A wave of heat brushed over the team as the rockets detonated and a black blur came to a halt before the four girls.

Drei looked behind him in confusion, tail ready to slice and dice, _"I didn't hit them..."_ He had made a break for it right after Weiss' shield gave way and tried to take out the missiles.

He had been a few inches away when they exploded.

A quick glance at the surprised Ruby revealed a smoking barrel and five shell casings nearby.

"Just in time," Yang commented as they got back up, leave it to Drei to bail them out when stuff goes wrong.

The Grimm shook his head, there would be time for explanations later.

"You guys ready?" Ruby had to speak fast, Roman would recover soon.

"Almost, we need to charge her," Weiss informed.

"Oh! Drei," Yang got the Grimm's attention, "I need you to hit me _really_ hard."

Said Grimm gave a confused whine.

"Blake follow me, you two explain it to him," Ruby raced back to the robot with three Blakes.

"Drei, Yang's semblance is the harder she's hit the stronger she gets," Weiss cut to the chase, "We need it to activate before we throw her,"

Yang braced herself as Drei snapped his attention to the brawler.

Giving him the go ahead the Grimm delivered a heavy blow with his tail, fire lit up in her eyes and her hair turned a brighter shade of yellow.

Yang glared at the machine her sister and friend were distracting.

"I need you to throw her," Weiss requested of the Grimm while lessening Yang's weight even more.

Wrapping his tail around the girl, Drei lifted her with surprising ease and launched her full strength.

He didn't know about the glyphs.

Blake and Ruby saw the incoming girl and backed off, Yang had a massive grin as she prepared to whale on the titanic robot.

Weiss raised her hand and turned it clockwise, increasing Yang's weight to the limit her body could withstand.

Its armor shattered like glass, metal splintered under the incredible force as Yang tore her way into the machine and punched a hole clean through it.

Yang landed in a crouch, right fist slamming into the street as the force cracked the ground beneath her and the machine collapsed.

"Oh yeah, I'm awesome," She smirked as the glyph's effects wore off.

Roman scrambled out of the now useless Paladin, "Gah, you girls are freaks of nature. Can't rely on Atlas tech." He looked at the four in front of him.

The scythe chick, the kitty cat, and the wolf he recognized from the docks. Weiss Schnee was somebody he had to learn about, after all, he's in the business of stealing from her dad.

The fire chick was an unknown but she was definitely one tough cookie.

"We're taking you in," Blake promised as the five began edging closer to him.

"Oh really?" Roman looked to the roof of the building he'd damaged.

Standing above them was a small woman with pink and brown hair wearing a white suit jacket with pink trim.

She dropped down to the street level, softly floating down on an umbrella and landing next to Roman.

"Who're you?" Ruby demanded while Drei narrowed his eyes.

She was much more dangerous than Roman.

With a teasing smile, the newcomer tapped the ground with her umbrella, causing dozens of realistic replicas of the two to spring forth and race around.

RWBY and Drei lost track of which one was real, the grimm and faunus unable to smell them out over the gunpowder and their footsteps were surprisingly difficult to pinpoint.

"Whoa!" Yang punched one that got too close, shattering it instantly.

Drei followed her lead, tapping a Roman that got close and breaking it to pieces.

"Just touch them and they'll break!" Ruby shouted while zipping through the crowd.

In no time at all, there was only a single pair left a little way down the street, past Yang.

"Gotcha now!" She grinned triumphantly and decked Roman but he too broke into glass, followed by the mysterious woman.

Team RWBY and their Grimm friend were left alone in the street, they couldn't hear any nearby footsteps or locate a trail they could follow.

"They got away!" Blake kicked a piece of rubble and nailed Drei in the side. The Grimm just glared at her as it broke apart on his fur. Blake's anger disappeared, "Sorry..." She apologized.

"Well, at least we took out their stolen mech!" Ruby pointed out with a smile, them having it was super dangerous.

"But how'd they their hands on it? The Atlesian Paladin's manufacturing location is supposed to be top secret and under heavy guard at all times..." Weiss voiced her own concerns.

If they could breach that level of security...

"Guess I one upped you there huh Drei?" Yang grinned as she joined them, the Grimm shook his head.

 **Ruby shot the missiles out of the air**

"Really?" Yang looked at her sister with pride when Drei confirmed it. "My baby sister is awesome!" She cheered and lifted Ruby into a bear hug, despite her attempts to get free.

"Yaaaaang" Ruby whined, embarrassed.

"Ohh.. ouch." Yang put her sister down and rubbed one of her lower left ribs. Drei really didn't hold back. Her eyes actually widened as it dawned on her that she'd been using her aura to block damage like normal, and he _still_ managed to bruise a rib despite that protection.

Next time she'd just tell him to cut her hair.

The pain cleared up a few seconds later as her aura healed her.

Drei's ears perked up as sirens sounded in the distance. _"That's my cue,"_ Ruby frowned as Drei jumped on a nearby roof and made the journey away from the battle site.

"What's the matter sis?"

"Nothing..." Yang didn't push the issue, if Ruby needed to talk about it she would later.

When the police pulled up they started to question the hunters, some recognized Ruby and Blake from the incident at the docks.

Once more, they had to explain what happened and omit any mention of their friend.

By the end of it Yang had a pretty good idea about what was bothering Ruby.

 ** _=================================|EKM|====================================_**

" **-old man my ass,** "

Jaune and Pyrrha stared at the screen, eyes wide and mouths agape as the crowd erupted. A friend of Spruce Willis' character managed to shoot an RPG out of the air with a handgun.

"That'd be so hard to pull off!" Pyrrha excitedly whispered.

"This movie is nuts," Jaune agreed.

Only a few minutes later the theater went wild when Spruce's character rammed a car through a helicopter with next to no damage.

"No way," Jaune said in awe.

"Could something that small even do that in real life?" Pyrrha knew that was a silly question, she bet someone crazy enough could pull it off.

And they _had_ beaten a Nevermore during their initiation test for Beacon Academy, so...

By the time the movie ended Jaune was openly weeping as the main character had to run away despite helping to stop the main bad guy, just because the people wouldn't understand.

"It's just so saaaad" Pyrrha giggled softly as she and Jaune left the movies. "Why can't they just give him a chance~"

"Maybe they will in the sequel," She postulated.

"I hope so," Jaune wiped the last tears from his eyes and laughed, he didn't think the movie would turn out so emotionally devastating.

"I had a really good time," Pyrrha told Jaune with a warm smile.

The blonde haired knight returned it, "So did I."

Pyrrha was about to speak when rising smoke caught her attention, "Whoa, what do you think is happening over there?" Jaune asked when he saw it.

"Let's go check it out," Pyrrha and Jaune began the long trek and just barely missed two other people walking out of the theater.

"It's just so saaaad," Nora cried into Ren's shoulder, he placed a comforting hand on her back.

"I bet he'll return in the sequel and prove himself a hero," Ren assured Nora as he watched Jaune and Pyrrha make their way to the smoke.

"He better," Nora sniffed.

They had gone into the movie theater to continue operation observation but got sidetracked by the movie itself.

Who knew an action star could make you cry out for him to be okay?

 ** _=================================|EKM|====================================_**

 **Using Neptune's scroll, which was hidden underneath a layer of fur, the Grimm texts Sun and tells him to bring any leftovers to the roof, specifically, the cafe's roof they're currently at.**

 **And that this is Drei.**

 **Sun makes a somewhat disturbed face as he looks up.**

"This is pretty good," Neptune had to commend Sun's choice of cuisine as the two passed the time.

"You think they're okay?"

The two had found themselves near a restaurant after being thrown off the highway. After a giant robot decides you need to leave and almost breaks your arm doing it, giving up for the time being seems like a fantastic choice.

At least until you are halfway through some fancy noodles from a place you can't pronounce correctly and the guilt starts eating away at you faster than you can consume the food.

"I'm sure they're fine." Neptune went back to his plate.

"I hope so..." Sun's scroll began buzzing.

Checking the ID revealed it to be... Neptune.

The guy sitting right across from him.

"Hmm," He took a look at the message.

 **Save leftovers and bring to roof**

 **Drei**

Looking up, the monkey faunus saw the last bit of a pure black fur tail hanging over the edge.

Neptune furrowed his eyes when he saw Sun turn a bit paler than usual.

Following his line of sight, the light-blue haired teen almost choked on his steak as the tail slithered back over the lip of the roof and a scroll was chucked over the side, landing next to Neptune.

"Hey, have you guys seen anything weird lately?" Sun jumped as Jaune walked past.

"EVERYTHING'S FINE NOW!" Sun swore, breathing heavily.

Jaune and Pyrrha shared a concerned look, "Well... what was that smoke stack then?" Pyrrha pressed, it was near here last she checked.

"Blake and the others took care of it... I guess." Sun didn't think the Grimm would stop for leftovers if he was able to help out in the fight.

"Oh, then... I guess we should start getting back to Beacon," Jaune shrugged, he doubted they could help out anymore here. "I'm kinda glad to nerve-wracking stuff only happens to them."

* * *

 **Tried to make this fight shorter and faster, hope it was alright!**

 **Also, yay, two (three if you count the april fool's thing which I don't) chapters of The Oldest Grimm in a month!**


	25. Consequences: Social and Physical

_I'm feeling a bit rusty in fight scenes again... aaaand I'm trying something different with it._

* * *

Ozpin sat in his office, reviewed footage Glynda recovered from the recent incident in Vale. The fact was that they, for now, had to ensure the existence of their Grimm friend stayed hush-hush.

When the stolen Atlesian Paladin made its appearance made sure to refill his empty mug.

 _"I think something stronger will be needed,"_ Ozpin mused as he sat back down and continued watching the recording. The entire fight had been caught on a group of cameras, Ironwood had altered the footage still in the hands of Vale to remove any inclusion of Drei.

Prepping the transfer students for the entities existence had been somewhat difficult, eventually, after informing his fellow Headmasters about the intelligent Grimm they'd come up with a binding agreement for their students to sign.

The bottom line was that revealing Drei's existence to the world would be treated as treason and punished accordingly, no matter how young.

While Ozpin preferred for his students to remain children as long as possible, there were certain things that had to remain a secret until they found a way to break the news to the world.

It would raise questions, to say the least.

Ozpin went for another sip but found his cup was empty already.

His mind wasn't focused on the video, he'd already debriefed team RWBY on it so there wasn't an issue with being distracted from it.

 _"When the news it out, will they be ready for it?"_

That was the question that had been on his mind regularly ever since Port told him about Drei after their first true experience with him.

On the screen Ruby took aim at five incoming missiles, Ozpin slowed the recording down, catching the blurred figure of Drei rushing to destroy them before they could detonate but Ruby's rifle shoot them all _just_ before his tail could make contact.

 _"Yet again, my decision to sign her up for Beacon seems well_ _founded,"_ A small smile made its way onto his features as he leaned back, resting in his chair comfortably. The rest of the conflict between Roman, a strange woman who he'd have to get Qrow to look into and Team RWBY with their helpful Grimm friend was reviewed before Ozpin got back to work.

He has suspected Roman Torchwich wasn't working with the White Fang alone, and it was highly unusual for that organization to accept help from a human.

No, the two must be working for their _actual_ enemy.

 ** _==================================|EKM|====================================_**

"Yang," Ruby whispered.

"Yeah?"

"How'd we get on this bed?"

Her older sister puffed out her cheeks, she didn't have a clue.

When they got back from Vale last night the entire team had been so exhausted they just collapsed on the floor, not even making it to their bunks.

Considering the fact that their Grimm friend was also resting on the bed, it was probable he had moved a mattress and comforter to form a makeshift bed for them.

Ruby couldn't get the image of Drei dragging stuff around, maybe even getting frustrated if it folded over at a weird time.

His tail had also stretched enough to wrap around all four of them, holding them next to him. Yang wondered if that was because he was annoyed by their antics in Vale.

Weiss was woken up by the sister's conversation and after taking stalk of her condition she began wiggling, trying to break free from the Grimm's tail.

Drei, curled up away from the blanketed huntresses, clenched his eyes shut as his tail unfurled from her and the rest of RWBY.

He hadn't actually gone to sleep ever since they got back, staying awake on the somewhat paranoid belief that Roman and his associate, or associates, would try to get vengeance for the setback.

Now, he was very tired and thankfully the sun had risen, if the blue skies told him anything. The school's staff members were awake and most likely alert for any threats, so he could rest easy now.

Drei finally let himself fall asleep, his sixteen-hour mission concluded with zero casualties, though, it was more Ruby's mission.

Blake blearily came back to the waking world once Drei's warm, comfortable tail left her body. The sneaky ninja groaned in discomfort, stretching out her legs as her first action this morning. She'd put everything she had into her and Sun's escape attempt from that Atlesian Paladin.

Combine that with the stress of actually fighting the thing and you had a killer workout.

"Ohmigod, we're gonna be late!" Ruby screeched, all but Blake double-timed their usual morning routine as they hurried to first period.

The normally graceful and stealthy Belladonna was oddly clumsy on her way out, bumping into the doorframe as she left the room and the rest of her journey was just as overt. Before she left, Blake took one last glance at Drei who was left alone in Team RWBY's room to sleep off his own overexertion.

 _"Lucky..."_ Blake narrowed her eyes in jealousy, the Grimm didn't have to attend a school that wasted a great deal of time teaching the students things other than ways to be more effective huntresses.

Professor Oobleck's argument against the thought that history was boring echoed through her head as Blake followed her team throughout the halls.

 _"If we don't remember the past, we'll only be repeating the mistakes of yesterday!"_

He'd given them those words of wisdom just before spilling his coffee for the fifth time that class.

Everyone could tell Blake was exhausted, Weiss jotting down notes for her to review later in response. When she had to ask _Yan_ _g_ what the teacher just said it became apparent to her teammates that Blake was too out of it to actually pay attention.

The hours ticked away, not even their lunch break was worth her notice today as the Faunus tried to stay awake.

"I don't know about you, but I'm dead tired after yesterday," Yang said in her usual, cheerful voice as they walked to the final class of the day.

"Hmmm," Blake was in no mood to talk. Yang thankfully the hint and left her alone until they took their seats in Glynda's sparring class. Almost instinctively, all members of JNPR and RWBY looked up in the rafters for any sign of Drei.

Jaune was honestly surprised he wasn't there.

Among all the classes they had this was the only one the Grimm was interested in, mostly to see how Jaune was coming along in his training.

The students talked amongst themselves until the door to Glynda's office was opened. The sharp snap of the supposedly icy teacher's footsteps bounced around, quieting the room as she looked over the assembled teenagers with stern eyes.

"Since hers were the highest grades last week, Pyrrha Nikos will begin," Glynda had come up with the idea to try and incentivise the hunters-in-training to actually study the less than stimulating courses by allowing whoever's grades were highest by the time their next Sparring Session rolled around to be the first to spar.

It had worked out relatively well, many students went from consistent Cs or lower to Bs as their lowest. Glynda had been quite smug during the Teacher Meeting after the first results came in.

The person who began the sessions last time had been, oddly enough, Nora. When properly motivated it seems the girl could work wonders. Oobleck had been pleased with her newfound interest in History, to say the least.

The time before that had been Lie Ren, though he had politely turned down the offer and given the honor of the first match to another student.

Pyrrha walked down to the ring and pivoted to face the students, raking her eyes over all of them. Glynda had told them that the one chosen to spar for the day could choose any opponent, or opponents, they wanted.

The matches would end if either party's aura dipped into the red, standard rules still applied.

"Cardin, Sky, Russel, and Dove," Pyrrha picked the entirety of Team CRDL as her first opponent. Ms. Goodwitch raised a brow. Pyrrha had faced off against all four of them before, roughly two weeks ago, and was pushed into the red by the team.

From what she'd observed, Cardin's team had actually upped the ante in their training while Ms. Nikos remained mostly the same, so what result Pyrrha expected to see except for the same as before was beyond her.

Honestly, the only reason she allowed the match the first time was to serve as a lesson to any student that thought otherwise.

No single fighter, no matter how skilled, was invincible. Glynda knew that _many_ students seemed to be of the mind that highly skilled hunters or huntresses like Pyrrha Nikos were some sort of unbeatable warrior from the heavens.

Such a belief was _fatal_ in their line of work. Glynda had seen quite a few people die, or accidentally allow others to die, simply because they either believed themselves to be infallible, or others refused to help because of such a misguided trust in their skill.

While Pyrrha herself was not one to buy into the image cultivated by those around her, those individuals needed to be shown the truth if they were to survive.

But, Pyrrha had made her choice. When she saw the four still seated, Glynda spoke up, "Well? Don't keep us waiting," her authoritative tone spurred them to action.

The five checked their weapons as Team CRDL stood across from Pyrrha. Cardin readied his mace, Russel played with his daggers, Dove brandished his longsword, and Sky flipped his halberd as they waited for the countdown.

Glynda held a remote and pressed a larger button on it, causing the screens above and behind the students to flash to life. On one side it had a picture of Pyrrha and her aura versus CRDL's. Both sides were fully in the green.

"You know the rules by now, if your aura falls into the red state I will stop the match. If you fall outside the ring you are disqualified. If _I_ feel you are unable to continue you are disqualified. Other than that, no moves intended to kill. We aren't _barbarians_." She made clear, looking at Cardin in particular.

He hadn't pulled anything for a few weeks, but his match with Jaune still weighed on her mind. If the boy hadn't brought his shield up at the last second the school might've had a murder case on their hands.

"And the Semblance Rule is still in effect, do not use it unless absolutely necessary to _survive_ , not win." _That_ rule had been created after the rematch between Jaune and Cardin, half the risk would've been avoided if Cardin's shockwaves were banned in the duel.

"Yes ma'am," Five voices said in unison.

"Good, then you can begin at the bell." Another button was pressed with a countdown timer of 10 seconds.

Pyrrha readied herself and scanned her opponents. Russel had his daggers in a reverse grip, Dove's sword was braced in front of his body, Cardin had his mace tightly grasped, and Sky was somewhat behind the others with his halberd at the ready.

Last time they fought it had ended with a victory of Team CRDL, despite everything Pyrrha was still just one person. A single highly skilled huntress could be brought down by a team that could work together.

But throughout her training sessions, both alone, with the team, and when working one on one with Jaune on his swordsmanship, Pyrrha had noticed a change.

When she had a duel against Ruby, the younger girl's vast speed was perceivable to the Spartan despite just a few weeks earlier the red-cloaked girl was a blur whenever she ran.

She didn't know _how_ that change happened, but she intended to find out.

The timer hit 1 second, Pyrrha calmed her thoughts.

Russel shot forth once the timer ran out, forcing Pyrrha to take a step back.

Pyrrha felt the air behind the blades as she dodged and parried.

The gangly teen overextended his reach, Pyrrha instantly ducked underneath and hit him hard with Miló's hilt, knocking the wind out of Russel.

Rearing back, he could barely raise his arms in defense as the powerful warrior spun around, using the momentum to power a heavy kick.

Before she could follow up Dove jumped in with a flurry of blows, the Spartan and the Knight clashed, neither able to overcome the other.

One thing she had discovered last fight was that Dove had a surprising amount of skill with a blade. He could stalemate her for a respectable amount of time.

Disengaging, Pyrrha shoved Dove off balance by deflecting his next strike with her shield.

Taking a step forward she hooked her leg around Dove's and tripped the knight.

The powerful blow that followed sent his aura from high green to mid yellow.

Pyrrha rolled away from the Cardin's mace, barely avoiding the heavy blow that would've landed.

Miló transformed with the flick of her wrist, becoming a spear as she got back to her feet.

Pyrrha took aim at Cardin, but her instincts _screamed_ at her to dodge again.

Sky's halberd pierced where she _had_ been only a moment ago, trying to take advantage of her distraction.

Dove jumped back to his feet as Russel got his breathing back under control. The four members of Cardin stood together against the Spartan once more.

Back in the seats the entire class intently watched the rematch. Ren winced as Russel took advantage of Pyrrha's distraction with his teammates and drove his knee into her back.

Jaune cheered internally when she responded with a quick roundhouse, cracking him upside the face and launching Russel out of the arena.

Suddenly, the situation had improved way past their last encounter. The previous bout had ended with the average aura levels of CRDL in the higher yellow after several minutes, Pyrrha herself in the red.

Now they were in the yellow and Pyrrha was still holding on to green.

Dove challenged her again, the elegant and precise swipes and jabs of the two happened so quickly most were unable to follow as their weapons danced.

Abruptly, Pyrrha parried Dove's blade out of his hand and slammed her shield into his chest.

Pyrrha didn't let up, swiping his feet from under him and punching his jaw hard enough to drop him to orange.

The Spartan was forced to relent as Cardin stepped back up to the plate, she felt the wind behind his mace as she avoided it a second time.

Out the corner of her eye she saw Sky bringing his halberd down, another flick of her wrists and Miló was a spear.

Pyrrha tilted her shield as she brought it around, deflecting the attack and forcing Sky to re-adjust.

Before he could she took aim and let Miló fly, throwing it hard enough to pierce Sky's armor and hit his aura clad body.

In an instant, he went from full green to low yellow.

Racing forward, Pyrrha pulled Miló from him and kicked Sky out of the ring.

 _"Two down, two to go,"_ Pyrrha thought as she turned back to her opponents. Cardin and Dove glanced at the other, their eyes asking the same question.

What had changed?

Last time they sparred the four had been capable of _winning_ , Pyrrha was good, but not as invincible as initially believed. Their match had lasted several minutes before CRDL had emerged victorious.

Now, it wasn't even a minute in and they'd lost two fighters.

Either Pyrrha had been holding back, or she'd trained appropriately to face off against them. Cardin didn't know which prospect was more unnerving.

"Woooow," Ruby was positively gleeful as the match went on. Nobody was pulling out anything especially flashy but seeing Pyrrha take on four members of one of the strongest teams at Beacon and mop the floor with half the team in record time was _awesome_.

She couldn't _wait_ to tell Drei about it!

Yang found her attention drawn to Russel and Sky as the two somewhat awkwardly marched back to their seats. _"I've heard about the walk of shame, but dang. They take it to a whole new level,"_ They were _so_ uncomfortable with their general existence in that moment.

The brawler just leaned back in her chair and propped her feet on the desk, "How long do you think they'll last?" she whispered to Blake.

Dove's pained shout and the sound of a body thumping to the floor masked her teammates' answer. Holding a hand to her ear she leaned over to Blake.

"What was that?"

The faunus groaned, exhausted, "I said maybe a minute."

Yang looked back at the mat. Pyrrha was standing across from Cardin with _fire_ in her eyes, metaphorically of course. "Ten seconds, loser buys the winner a soda."

"Fine."

Pyrrha and Cardin circled the ring, coming to a halt equidistant from the other. Cardin's hands trembled as he gripped his mace tight, "So, you went _easy_ on us the first time, is that it?" Pyrrha narrowed her eyes.

Honestly... she hadn't. Fighting in a tournament meant learning how to fight one on one, she wasn't accustomed to facing multiple _hunters_ at a single time.

Cardin broke the standoff first, racing forward with an overhead swing.

Pyrrha sidestepped it and pinned the heavy weapon with Miló and landing a roundhouse on Cardin.

Cardin was forced to release his grip if he wanted hands to remain unharmed.

Pyrrha bashed him with her shield and let go of Miló.

As the firey weapon fell Cardin saw Pyrrha's fist come careening towards him, the blow found its mark right and sent heavier teen hurtling out of the ring.

Miló clanged to the floor just after Cardin landed with a grunt.

"Winner, Pyrrha Nikos." Glynda declared.

The Spartan let out a heavy breath as she grabbed Miló. Looking up at the scoreboard revealed her aura to be in the mid-green. Pyrrha stared at the screen for a moment before directing her attention back to Ms. Goodwitch.

"Would you like to continue, or are you finished?" Glynda asked the victorious spartan. Pyrrha shook her head. "Then choose your next opponent."

Pyrrha traced her eyes across the seated students, looking for anyone that might interest her. When she got to where team RWBY was seated the obviously exhausted Blake caught her attention. _"Is she not getting enough sleep?"_ the Spartan wondered.

Like the rest of JNPR, she'd been informed of yesterday's scuffle with Roman but Blake had seemed stressed even before that.

"I'll take a crack at it," somebody spoke up and walked down to the ring. Pyrrha traced her eyes over him, she didn't recognize the gray-haired teen in the slightest.

 _"He must be from another school,"_ she reasoned, Pyrrha was anything _but_ inattentive and could recognize most students in her year at Beacon.

"Do you accept?" Glynda asked the victor.

"Sure, I'd be willing to go again," Pyrrha replied with a small smile.

A few buttons were pressed on Glydna's desk, changing the screen and removing the now defeated team CRDL's status from view, replacing it with the newcomer's.

 _"Mercury Black,"_ Pyrrha made sure to read her opponent's name.

Their fight was much shorter than the previous match, Mercury moved in and unleashed a flurry of kicks that were strong enough to force a subtle application of her aura to deal with.

Pyrrha had _just_ shoved him back with, rather abruptly, the challenger raised his hands in surrender, "I give up," Pyrrha almost tripped as she halted her rush.

"W...what?" the question slipped out.

Mercury scoffed, "You're a tournament champion," he stressed, "I might as well bow out while I'm ahead."

"If that's the case... then winner, Pyrrha Nikos," Glynda slowly awarded her the win. That wasn't what she expected, to say the least. Pyrrha declined a third match and returned to her seat.

She palmed her chin and looked at the match going on with only some interest.

"Hey, you alright?" Jaune asked.

"Peachy," Pyrrha claimed. Honestly, she was replaying the fight against CRDL in her head. She shouldn't have had such an easy time against them.

Her last fight against the four ended with a solid loss. The only reason she even asked for a rematch was a spur of the moment decision that she was expecting to end exactly the same as before.

She hadn't changed her training regimen, not much anyway. It was usually her own session before going to mentor Jaune in swordsmanship. On occasion, RWBY and JNPR would pester Drei enough to help out like he did Jaune for a month, but that hadn't happened in the two weeks between her last fight with CRDL and now.

It didn't add up, they were _slower_ than before. And it obviously wasn't something different with them, she could tell that much.

Something had changed with _her_.

 ** _==================================|EKM|====================================_**

"Sooooo-" Yang slid up next to Blake, "You got anyone in mind for the Dance?" she scooped some mashed potatos up after asking Blake.

"No," Was Blake's clipped response as she mechanically inserted food into her mouth. The day had caught up with her a long time ago, everyone had made a mental gauge of her crankiness levels as they rose.

"Darn it!" Nora frowned, Drei had woken up around 4:00 P.M and joined them for dinner.

He had taken one of her cupcakes when she wasn't looking.

 _"You **monster** ," _Nora's simmering glare had her teammates scooching a few inches away while the Grimm met her gaze, glowing red eyes refusing to submit.

Yang put a finger to her lips in mock contemplation, "What about Sun? He's obviously got the hots for you," Blake let out a long, tired sigh.

"If I say yes will you stop pestering me?" She wasn't in the mood for these kinds of games right now.

"Uhuh, but only if ya stick with it"

"Then _fine_ " Yang grinned and we back to her meal.

"Do you know who you're going with, Yang?" Ruby hadn't exactly kept up with any of Yang's friends outside of their little group. Her older sister shrugged.

"Won't be a problem," she confidently smirked. Finding some guy to take to a dance had never been an issue for her before, no reason it would be now.

"I see," Ruby looked down at her steak dejected, she hadn't made any actual effort to find friends beyond her own team and Jaune's. The only other person she really knew was Drei and...

Well, just looking at him, she knew the Grimm would be unable to dance in the first place. Ruby cupped her chin and imagined the sight of him awkwardly dancing on his hind legs, letting out a small giggle.

It would look _ridiculous_.

"And I bet you're going with Neptune, right Princess?" Yang pressed the Schnee Heiress for information.

A light dusting of red emerged from her stoic expression. "What if I am?"

"Then good for you!" Yang cheered embarrassingly loud.

At team JNPR's table, Drei turned to his left and grabbed the Dust Pad Jaune had brought with them.

 **Dance?**

He wrote questioningly, tilting his head at Ren confused.

He furrowed his brow as he thought of how to explain it. "It's... something done for fun or as a celebration between a few people."

 **Understood, it is a Mating Ritual**

Ren sputtered, tea dribbling out as he launched into a series of coughs while Nora went into a giggling fit.

 **Please take your business elsewhere once the ritual has been completed**

Pyrrha turned crimson when she read what the Grimm had written "A.. a dance doesn't mean _that_ happens!" Ren's stoic demeanor broke as he corrected Drei.

 **So what is a dance then**

Nora's eyes lit up as she almost popped into existence next to Ren. "We'll show you!" she tugged on his arm and the normally calm teenager looked incredibly self-conscious at the impromptu dance session with his friend-girl.

Jaune turned to Pyrrha, "Are you still up for later today?" After her showing during Glynda's class, she might prefer to just skip today's swordsmanship lesson and do it first thing tomorrow.

"Of course," she assured him with a smile.

 ** _==================================|EKM|====================================_**

For their training sessions, Jaune and Pyrrha usually went either to the fields just next to Beacon or to the rooftop of the school itself.

Today, they'd gone for the rooftop option, working on Mr. Arc's overall form with a blade beneath a clear sky as the day wound down and the sun set on the horizon.

And the smack of a wooden practice sword on his fingers. "Yeowch!" Jaune dropped everything to suck on the stinging appendage. _"That really smarts.."_ Pyrrha halted her follow up.

"Sorry..." she gave an apologetic smile.

They were using blunted wooden swords so fatal wounds were impossible but on occasion, Jaune would slip up and drop his barrier. The lack of actual danger made his control falter, Pyrrha had made it a point to hammer in the lesson that even though their sparring wouldn't result in a trip to the hospital, he should keep his Aura up anyways.

If only to stop stings like this from happening and interrupting their session.

"Uhh, it's not your fault, I mean, it's me who wasn't paying attention, right?" he chuckled.

She had to agree with him there, he looked a bit distracted. "What's on your mind?"

"Well," Jaune sighed, "Yang got me thinking about the Vrytal Festival dance that's coming up. I just realized I don't have anyone to go with really, and I doubt anyone's interested in tagging along with a guy like me." Asking Weiss was a fool's errand that he really didn't want to fall back into, and she was going with Neptune anyway.

Asking Ruby was a bit weird, she was like a younger sister to him.

"I think you'd be surprised if you just asked around. I bet you'll find someone who'd be perfectly happy to go with you in no time," Pyrrha sat her training sword on the ledge.

Jaune scoffed, "I don't exactly have the best _reputation_." His display at the start of the school year was still prevalent in most student's minds. And his embarrassing beatdown by Cardin the first time had more talk about it then his second showing.

"It's not as bad as you think," The numbers were heavily stacked, sure, but Pyrrha had heard a few students gossiping about his recent showings rather than his original ones.

Sadly, most people remembered the negative displays of others more prominently and made their judgments of a person solely by what that person did on their worst days, so she could see where he was coming from.

Pyrrha had experience with people only recalling brief snippets of her life and setting her on a pedestal. Instead of seeing the teenager, they saw the Invincible Spartan that won a few tournaments.

Quite frankly, when Jaune revealed he had zero prior knowledge of her past exploits it had been a breath of fresh air, and that's the main reason why she teamed up with him instead of Weiss. Thankfully, the Heiress had proven herself far less concerned with titles and reputations as of late.

"Well.. wanna work on your aura?" Pyrrha changed topics, she knew that Drei's weird aura draining constructs helped out in forcing the spirit to produce more energy, but that didn't help in controlling it in the slightest.

If anything, it made one's control _worse_ having to deal with more energy than they used to without learning how to use it properly.

Jaune looked down at his shoes, obviously frustrated, "It feels like that's going nowhere," it had been their most recent venture, all that it did was help out with management.

It didn't feel very useful when he had aura levels much higher than the norm for his age. "-and we don't even know what my Semblance is, I feel like if we focused on that I could catch up to you guys faster."

Pyrrha furrowed her brow in confusion, "How far behind do you _think_ you are?"

"A couple miles."

She shook her head, "Jaune, if anything, you're _right_ behind us. That's... I don't think you realize how _insane_ that is. _Nobody_ goes from civilian level to around where Cardin was at in a month. It took me _years_ to get where I am."

Jaune looked at her surprised, Drei had told him something similar a few days ago, but he took it with a grain of salt.

"The fact that you can even keep up with us is a _miracle_ if anything." Pyrrha finished, if Jaune seriously thought he should be ashamed for that meteoric rise, then he had serious self-confidence issues.

"I had good teachers"

Pyrrha frowned, _"He really doesn't see how talented he is,"_ letting out a sigh, the Spartan relented, for now.

"A person's Semblance can be tied to how much control they have over their aura, if we work on that, we might find out what yours is." The two sat next to each other cross legged, Pyrrha began to couch him through the meditation process.

By the time they finished, the sun had set and the shatterd moon was hovering over them, bringing light to the darkened skies.

 ** _==================================|EKM|====================================_**

Drei lurched his body down the hallways, the canine-esque Grimm had paid only the slightest of attention to Ren and Nora's example of what a dance was. Apparently, they were going with each other.

"we add her to the list?" he caught the tail end of a whisper.

"Yes, put her at the top." A female's, it had the air of authority in comparison to the other.

A second feminine tone reached him as he continued his sluggish gait. "She uses her Semblance so subtly, just barely moving metal as it approaches to make it look like she's dodging it with ease. I guess it further accents her _Invincible Girl_ status."

"She could prove to be a problem in the upcoming events," The first voice, now obviously male commented.

"I'm sure we'll be able to make due," The authoritative tone replied.

 _"Hmm, must be preparing for the tournament,"_ Drei got a glimpse of the three as he passed, a gray-haired teen, a black-haired woman in a red silk dress, and a green-haired girl wearing attire that brought archeology to his mind for some reason.

Why did Jaune have an interest in Archeology?

He sadly did not get _that_ information in the transfer.

The Grimm reached the room of team JNPR and settled down in his futon, at least nothing had _exploded_ today.

* * *

 **Drei really doesn't have much faith in RWBY or JNPR's ability to not make a racket on a daily basis.**


	26. Consequences: Obsession and Partnerships

_Have an announcement at the end_

* * *

Sitting slouched over a table in the Sparring Arena was one Ruby Rose, staring blankly ahead with a pronounced pout. It had been almost a week since their kerfuffle in Vale and ever since they returned Blake had been zealously devoted to searching for the smallest scrap of a clue to the whereabouts of Torchwick or the White Fang.

She hadn't been eating properly... or getting anything resembling a proper amount of sleep ever since. And if Drei's refusal to be in the same room with her said anything, she was definitely spiraling into a heck of a funk.

 _"Ugh, I really shouldn't say heck,"_ Ruby thought as she laid her head on the desk, the red and black clad girl came close to jumping out of her chair when Weiss suddenly made herself known, slapping two tablecloths in front of her.

"So, which one should we go with?" The ice-themed girl asked, leaning back on the railing that was in between the seating levels. The Vrytal Dance was tomorrow and Weiss really needed to know which tablecloth to use for the event, she'd narrowed it down to two.

Everything else had been prepared, from the music and drapes to the lighting to her date.

"Uhm..." Ruby's eyes slowly went between the two items. They were the same as far as she could tell, or darn close to it. "That one," She mumbled dispassionately, pointing at random.

Weiss raised her brow at the low-energy response, "Are you feeling okay?" Ruby might not have good taste in decor, their room was a bit of a mess after all, but she was always intense about it.

Letting out a sigh, Ruby pushed her head off the desk, "Yeah, just... I'm worried about Blake."

"Oh..." Weiss would be lying if she said that Blake's condition didn't have her worried as well, but there wasn't anything she could think of that would help.

Ruby rose from her seat, "I think Yang said something about talking to her, but I don't know if that'll do anything."

"Oh yeah! Don't you worry about a thing lil-sis!" Yang popped up behind Weiss and Ruby, drawing a startled gasp from them.

"Yaaaaang!" Ruby whined, "Don't do that!"

"Before you know it, Blake'll be out of her funk before the dance tommorow, I guarantee it!" Yang promised with an asurring grin before leaving just as fast as she'd arrived.

 ** _==================================|EKM|====================================_**

"Ahem," Cinder coughed, Drei turned away from the garden to the raven-haired woman. She put on a smile, "Hello, I don't think we've formally met."

The Grimm grunted, an acknowledgment. It was difficult to read the beast's expression but it seemed agreeable, if somewhat annoyed.

No doubt many other students had approached it at one time or another, fascinated by the exception to the rule. "I'm Cinder Fall," The woman gestured to the two following just behind her, "And they're Mercury Black and Emerald Sustrai." When she spoke their names it prompted a wave and nod respectively from them.

"We're from Haven," Cinder went through the rest of her rehearsed greeting before she left with her tag alongs in tow. Any pleasantness in her smile disappeared. "I trust the two of you were thinking about the empty room four doors down from our quarters?"

"Yes ma'am."

Cinder let out a hum. "Emerald, keep an eye on the beast. If he walks heads for it, we'll try two more locations before arriving at a conclusion."

When they initially planned their infiltration, such a Grimm wasn't even considered for obvious reasons. Now, they needed to know everything about it, especially his strengths and limitations.

If it came down to it, he would need to be eliminated with haste.

 ** _==================================|EKM|====================================_**

Tiredly, Blake fiddled with a green holographic display in the library. It was used to connect to the CCTS, usually for researching things for classes that couldn't be found in the expansive library in Beacon.

Technically, it was being used for that reason, just not for anything resembling schoolwork.

Blake had been searching for any scrap of information about the White Fang ever since they returned from Vale last week, so far, she had only found baseless rumors and hearsay.

That wasn't going to cut it. Until she found something concrete she would- Blake's face creased into a glare as a red dot appeared on the screen.

 _"Just ignore it.. just ignore it.. just ignore-"_ Growling, she batted the red point, trying to get it to go away. Suddenly, it moved away and all logic in Blake's mind went out the window as she chased after it.

"Aha!" She grinned triumphantly when she caught it, only to hiss in annoyance when it showed up on her hand and skitted across the floor away from her.

The chase continued until she was led outside and found herself crouching with the dot trapped in her hands, with one Yang Zhao Long leaning against the wall with a laser pointer in her hands and an unamused look on her face.

 ** _==================================|EKM|====================================_**

"Huuuuuuuugh" Jaune sighed heavily, falling onto his back as he laid in the grass of the school's garden. He'd asked for a week now and everybody was either uninterested in going with him to the dance, or taken.

"Something wrong?" Ren prompted his friend as he inspected the plants, adding water or fertilizer as needed. Taking care of a garden could be very relaxing, and he was thankful that Ozpin granted him permission to care for the school's outdoor one.

Jaune looked out the corner of his eye, "...no"

"You're lying."

"What makes you say that?"

"Your sigh."

Jaune let out another, feeling like a wall was preventing him from talking about what was bothering him. He took a breath and pushed through that reluctance, "I've asked... literally everyone if they want to go with me to tomorrow's thing."

"And?" Ren put on some gloves as he began trimming the hedges. He'd tried to help Jaune find a partner off and on through the week, apparently it didn't go so well.

"Nothing."

"Can you think of anyone you haven't asked?" Ren inquired, looking back at Jaune curiously. The blonde teen's face spoke volumes, shifting away after a realization hit him rather obviously.

"Pyrrha... but..."

"But what?" Now was his chance, Operation Observation had gotten him and Nora nowhere, their reconnaissance work had revealed that Pyrrha was insanely shy and Jaune was incredibly dense. At least one of these things was just further confirmation of what they already knew.

"Wouldn't it, I dunno, hurt her image or something as the best fighter in the Academy to go with the guy who has the loser reputation?" Ren shook his head.

Ren shook his head, "Would she care about that?"

Jaune frowned, honestly... Pyrrha wouldn't. Thinking back to his first exchange with her, she'd spoken with him easily and when Weiss tried to butter up to her, Pyrrha had replied with an almost practiced response and then sought him out in the forest exam.

While her reputation had taken a hit when she was beaten by Cardin's team the first time, she'd seemed somewhat relieved at the time. People had taken to speaking to her like classmates more, not fans. Their rematch hadn't changed that either, despite her victory.

It was like the illusion was finally shattered, and they weren't speaking to a goddess of combat, but a highly skilled, yet imperfect person who had limits and could grow. Pyrrha had been a lot... happier, more relaxed.

So... no, her reputation seemed like it was more of a burden than anything.

"No..."

"Then should you go ask her to the dance?" Jaune _had_ said he exhausted all other possibilities.

"...thanks man." Jaune answered.

"Mmhm."

 ** _==================================|EKM|====================================  
_**

 _"That's new,"_ Blake pushed herself off the floor, rising to meet Yang's disapproving stare. "What do you want?"

Never in her time as Yang's partner has she seen anything resembling the fed up expressions she had at this moment. At most, she would be unamused with Ruby when she wasn't trying to branch off and make friends outside of their little group, or mad when her hair was messed with.

Never disapproving, never like this.

"When was the last time you slept?" Yang asked as she really took in Blake's condition. Her partner's eyes had some serious bags beneath them, her hair was somewhat unkempt, and she was just a slight bit paler than normal. Her movements were also somewhat sluggish, as was her mind.

A red dot shouldn't hold that much power over her.

"I took a nap thirty minutes ago" Blake knew that was _not_ the response Yang was looking for the moment it came out of her mouth.

Yang's narrowed eyes softened, looking down, she nibbled on her lower lip, "I haven't told you about me and Ruby's childhood yet, have I?"

Blake blinked, "No?" What did that have to do with anything?

Yang let out a short laugh, "Figures. Where to start..." Yang snapped her fingers and grabbed Blake by the arm, dragging her into an empty classroom.

"So, Ruby and I grew up on Patch off the coast of Vale. Our parents were hunters, so I guess fighting monsters is in the family."

"Is this going somewhere?" Yang frowned.

"Yes, give me more than one second." Blake really needed to sleep, "Our dad's a teacher at Signal, and our mom was one of the best, she took missions all around the Kingdom, slew giant monsters, and was back by 3 to bake us cookies." A smile crept on Yang's lips, "She was like... Super-mom."

"Then, one day, she went on a mission and never came back." Yang's usual peppy, upbeat self seemed to disappear. "It was tough on everyone, but... Ruby was really too young to know what was going on, y'know? And dad... well.. he just shut down for awhile." As her story continued, Blake's expression changed. It went from standoffish to understanding, and even sympathy.

"It took a bit, but I figured out why dad was like that, see... he lost his first love too."

"Wuh?"

"Crazy, right? Turns out me and Ruby are half-sisters, and our moms were on a team with my dad and uncle way long ago. My mom left just after I was born."

"Why did she?" Blake couldn't stop the question from leaving.

Yang let out a long sigh, looking up in thought, "That's the million dollar question, isn't it? Why? I didn't know, but I was desperate to find out. I asked everyone who knew her to try and find some insight into her, maybe if I did that, I could understand what compelled her to leave."

"And one day, I found a clue. I was so excited to find anything, maybe even my mother, that I didn't think it through. See, I waited till my dad left the house, put Ruby in a wagon and left." Yang shook her head at her younger self. That was easily the stupidest thing she's ever done.

"I don't know how long we traveled, by the end of it I was covered in scrapes and dirt. But we made it, and when we got to a worn down house I thought could maybe lead me to my mom, it was a worn down shack. And it had red, glowing eyes inside."

Blake, even knowing for a fact that Yang survived the encounter, turned pale. A girl that young with a sibling that can't possibly defend herself in the presence of a Grimm.

"I was utterly exhausted, and couldn't even move at that point; heck, I couldn't even _speak_ as the Grimm moved towards us. I'd served me and my sister up to death on a silver platter, and we only survived because my Uncle Qrow arrived at the last second." Yang looked back at Blake.

"My _stubbornness_ would've gotten us killed. It _should've_."

Blake looked away, "I'm sorry about what happened to you, but I'm not a little girl Yang, I can take care of myself."

"Oh? So if Torchwich and his little pal were to walk in that door right now, what would you do?

Blake _snarled_ , "I'd fight him."

"You would _lose_ in your condition." Yang discretely nodded.

"You don't know tha-" Blake's sentence was cut off, a bladed tail was suddenly at her throat. She hadn't even heard the door open, hadn't heard Drei's overt footsteps or noticed the lingering traces of a shampoo product and the beast's usual open-air scent.

Yang's eyes softened as the Grimm tail retracted. "You didn't even detect _him_. Don't get me wrong, I haven't given up on the search for my mom, but I just don't let it consume me anymore. You don't have to _stop_ , Blake, just take it slow."

The Grimm yawned, the tired Blake instantly repeated it. Yang laughed, "And get some rest, you're _coming_ to that dance with us, no excuses."

Blake's faux energy dissipated instantly, finally allowing her actual strength to show. "How'd you get him to help?" She asked as the three left the room.

Drei's glowing eyes turned to Yang in annoyance.

"When I told him this one simple trick could erase the noise, I didn't think he'd _stop_ agreeing to things." The brawler grinned, oooh... this was gonna be good.

 ** _==================================|EKM|====================================_**

"Hmm-hm-hmmmm" Nora stood beneath the shower, humming a merry tune to herself as she cleaned herself off from the day's sweat and grime. Turning the water off, she stepped out of the shower and robed herself, happily leaving the bathroom without a care in the world.

"...Nora?" Pyrrha's nervous voice brought her back. Opening an eye, she saw the Spartan standing in an uncomfortable pose, rubbing an arm in embarrassment.

 _"Jackpot"_ Seems it was finally the time. "Heya Pyr, what's shaking?"

"Well..." Pyrrha took a moment to compose herself while Nora tried to hide her excitement. The moment of truth was here! "I've been trying to get a date for the dance, and nobody I ask wants to go with me, and the only person I want to go with is... obviously not interested.

Nora's eyes widened, _"Oh God! The denseness is spreading!"_ The peppy girl took a seat on her bed across from Pyrrha. "So, who's the lucky guy?"

"He's... y'know. A friend I made around, he's got hair... and a sword... and a shield." Nora nodded with a sage-like look.

"Hmmm... is it so hard to say the word "Jaune" or did we misjudge things entirely?" Screw waiting, she and Ren had been doing that for what felt like years now.

Pyrrha's entire train of thought screeched to a halt, she didn't even close her mouth as everything about her just froze. When she finally rebooted, a light dusting of red was on her cheeks. "Are we that obvious?!" Pyrrha let out a cough, that came out louder than she'd hoped.

Nora just gave her a knowing look, "Oh yeah, to me an Ren at least."

"Ren knows too?!"

"And I think Yang figured it out, and Weiss, and Blake, I don't know about Ruby though. OH! And Drei too, I think that's why he didn't call you during the whole shebang that happened in Vale." Pyrrha took to staring at her beddings. The longer Nora went on the more embarrassed she felt. "and also I think _Cardin_ on all people noticed-"

 _"Dust_ , who _didn't_ know?!" She finally asked.

"-and probably the teachers too." Nora finished with a grin.

"Dust..." Pyrrha shook her head and looked back up at Nora, "Could you... y'know.. help me with it?"

"Sure!" Before they could actually form a plan of action the door opened and the rest of their team walked right in. "Even better! Hey Jaune." The blonde looked up from the floor to Nora.

"Hey Nora," He greeted her.

"Pyrrha wants to go to the dance with you," Nora revealed without a care in the world, drawing an unprepared sputtering from half the room's occupants. _"Well that was easy,"_ She thought while they tried valiantly to recover.

Why hadn't she and Ren thought of that earlier?

 ** _==================================|EKM|====================================_**

At the end of a long day, one could usually find Professor Ozpin seated in his office, drinking a fine brew of coffee while he went over any paperwork that came up.

This particular day was slightly abnormal, however. Every now and again the teachers and faculty members would give him progress reports on the students, they were a school after all.

According to Port, the older students in his class had become more interested in Grimm Studies after their... unusual arrival at the start of this year. Drei's sheer existence had opened up many questions that the students were more than ready to research and answer.

Oobleck had requested funds to plan a school trip to an ancient ruin, Oz had looked over the budget and found it to be more than possible and approved it.

Learning about the past of their world was always something to be interested in, much had been lost to the Grimm and anything that could be recovered was worth it.

He had finished with all but Glynda's reports, the woman handed it to him directly and was currently seated in his office.

Raising a brow as he took another sip, the Headmaster cleared his throat before speaking, "I must say, I expected fewer applicants. Some of the teams on here were exhibiting average at best combat results last report if I recall correctly."

"Yes, well. It seems that shattering the overabundance of confidence the student body had in one fighter in particular worked out like I'd hoped it would." Glynda had made the new rules in the arena partly to prevent further potential accidents, yes, but it had another purpose as well.

Whether Ozpin liked it or not, they were training the students to be the next generation of soldiers in the war against Grimm. Having the belief that among their peers that an invincible warrior walked among them was a tragedy waiting to happen, Glynda had experience with the potential dangers personally.

Ozpin took another sip, "And what about Pyrrha herself?" He placed his mug down and interlocked his fingers, staring deep into Glynda's eyes.

"She appears to have become faster and stronger without any major change to her training regimen. Her defeat over Cardin's team during their second match was... not something I foresaw, despite her knowing more of their combat methods." Glynda had been paying very close attention that match, at no point had Pyrrha used her Semblance, and neither had her competition.

Against the transfer student was another story, but it was difficult to hold off on a habit, and especially difficult to forget part of one's fighting style.

"I suppose we'll discover that another day. I trust you've been keeping a close eye on the team lead by Ms. Rose?" Ozpin himself was watching as well, but he had been busy with setting up the Vrytal Festival, among other things.

His time to watch over his students had sadly been reduced.

"Yes, after their latest excursion it seems that Ms. Belladonna has been focused on other interests, to say the least."

"Mmm... Port and Oobleck tell me she has seemed exhausted lately. Troublingly so, in fact." Blake's condition hadn't gone unnoticed by the teachers. "But, if Yang's conversation with he was anything resembling meaningful, I have no doubt she would be absolutely fine by tomorrow." He finished.

Glynda had seen that recording, the result seemed positive if anything.

"Well," Ozpin put the paperwork on his desk away, "I think that's enough for one day. Care to join me for a cup of coffee?"

"No, but I have no doubt Oobleck would love to accompany you." Glynda repressed a shiver after the words left her mouth. Oobleck and coffee were two things that should _never_ mix. Especially after last time.

As Glynda left his office, Ozpin could only look at his pensive expression reflected in the coffee.

 _"When will they make their move..."_

* * *

 _ **Fun Stuff**_

 ** _The greatest mystery from this chapter? What does Yang have planned for Drei O.o'_**

 ** _As for why Drei's sudden appearance was such a big deal... well. When he's not rushing to Vale to save some gals from their accidental screwup, he's not really all that stealthy when just walking around. Imagine a bull in a china shop that, when needed, can become a stealthy spider._**

 ** _Or just jump really high, whatever._**

 _ **Serious Stuff**_

 _ **I'm pregnant (Not really, needed an ice-breaker)**_

 _ **I hate to do this but I feel the need to focus more on creating my own piece of work than continuing to add to a fan fiction that, while I enjoy writing immensely and appreciate every bit of feedback, is just a passion project more than anything and I have another, very important bit of work that I've been trying to get out there with little success while I'm focusing on this story and the others on my profile.**_

 _ **For now, I will be putting all my stories on Hiatus until the moment I finish writing my original novel, but I assure you that they will not be abandoned (unless I die or something, let's not jinx that though) until I have completed them.**_

 _ **To everyone that has followed and favorited my stories, thank you so much. I never expected the thought of "What if a Grimm was smart" to be such a popular thing to read about, and I can't stress enough how I**_ **will _be finishing the adventures of Drei the sleepy wolf, it'll just be on hold for a little while._**

 ** _To everyone that has graciously provided me with constructive criticism, I thank you profusely. With your help, I was able to work on my flaws and I can only hope that goes on to assist me in future writing and allow others to more easily enjoy my work._**

 ** _I can't give a real timeframe for when I'll return to this story, and to those I disappointed with this announcement I apologize but I must do what I feel is best for me._**

 ** _TL;DR_**

 ** _This isn't a goodbye, I will just be putting my stories on a hiatus, I will finish them, and thank you for reading._**


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